USS John S. McCain Collision 20 Aug 17

[Stoker]

I suppose what you are saying may be true, but it is not the most likely possibility. Steering systems on warships are fairly simple electro/mechanical arrangements. probably not even as sophisticated as a Jeep Cherokee.

More than likely, this is a simple and tragic case of a mechanical system failing at worst possible moment and the bridge crew being inadequately trained well enough to manage it in time.

Calm seas on autopilot, I have seen orchestrated failures for engineering drills not noticed on the bridge for sometime.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Not entirely sure that your first statement is correct. With what experience and certainty have you audited this system?

Well, let's see: FSTO has more than 21 years of service as a naval officer and is intimately knowledgeable of all systems found on a bridge and had to qualify and remain qualified by showing his understanding of their functioning. So I would say he has both experience and certainty.

When considering a potential threat surface to be the steering gear system, even if not intentionally "networked", a system may still be accessed indirectly through a pivot (another system), or through side-channel attack.

You may do that for systems that receive or can receive inputs from other systems that are computers and therefore can be "hacked" and re-program. That is not the case of warship steering systems: they do not receive inputs from computers at all. Only mechanical inputs from human operators or electrical/electronic inputs from non-programmable system that cannot be hacked themselves, such as the gyrocompass or a GPS feed.

Many vehicle manufacturers (as one example) are finding this out the hard, and expensive way.
Sure, the braking system in your 2017 Jeep Cherokee isn't networked; but it IS on a CAN bus, which can be pivoted onto through other means.

Quite true about the jeep Cherokee, but that is because the brake system is plugged into an onboard computer, as an input source, so that the "intelligent" cruise control or the pedestrian / collision avoidance programming can perform its function. On the other hand, my 2015 F-150 pick-up has the old "dumb" cruise control, whose sole input is my actual setting of the speed I want from the buttons on my dash. The brakes are therefore not accessed by any computer and they can't be actuated by a hacker. Same for my very modern electronic thermostat at home. It has an electronic board, with ROM memory where the program that runs my HVAC resides, but the programming is one time -unchangeable and the system is not connected to anything. It would never work with "remote" domotique programs on my cell phone - but on the other hand, no jackass will ever be able to turn my system off when I am not there, even if they get their hands on my intelligent phone.  ;D

All that being said, a more likely threat surface would be to influence human factors through GPS/AIS/anysystem, deception and jamming.

You obviously don't know how GPS and AIS work at sea.

Let's start with GPS. It's not an app like on your iPhone, the receivers (that's what they are: radio-receivers) can only receive the very specific frequency that the constellation of GPS satellites transmit on and can only receive the very specific encoded time signal sent from those satellites. Nothing else can possibly be received or processed by a GPS receiver. And the receivers are not computers - they can't be programmed. When you hear people talking about "programming their GPS" all they are really doing is manually inputing way points and then, the receiver simply makes spherical trig calculations to determine bearings and distance to steer between way points. I am talking at sea here. There is more computing going on in your car GPS than a sea going one. In your car you can look up a final destination and then the GPS will figure out from it's onboard maps the best route to follow. At sea, we have to decide where the way points will be and it's only a straight calculation in the GPS box. Even if you pair the GPS with the electronic charts, you can't just tell the GPS: I am in Hong Kong and am going to Vancouver. Your ship's GPS can't decide the whole route on its on and plot it for you. You can, however manually input the full route you want to follow on electronic charts and THEN tell the GPS to follow it. It will then input pure heading into the auto-helm, that will then follow that course using the Gyro-compass bearing input. Can GPS be jammed? It's radio signal that is very specific in the SHF range. I suppose it could be, but the jamming cannot be directional: you would be jamming everyone's GPS in the area: We would have known here because all the ship's would have gone crazy in the strait.

As for AIS, at sea, it is again here a radio transmitted signal. It is not the compiled image that you access on your computer at home. That image is compiled by groups that monitor AIS signals from space satellites and compile the data and conserve the data for re-use. But at sea, each ship transmits it's ID information via VHF radio signal on the approved frequency/channel, and everyone receives it from the ships in their vicinity only via that same radio. Again you could have jamming, but again everyone in the area would be jammed ad you would have known it right away. The ships would still all show up on radar however - and the only people that can jam radars are the military.

See my comments in yellow above, Brashendeavours. But that's OK. Your concerns are valid points from people used to the ways of the internet or any other interconnected system that relies on computers that re programmable/re-pragrammable. That is simply not the case with any of the navigation systems on ships - many of the propulsion and power systems onboard are controlled by computers, but even then, they are not connected to the internet or other systems that would be connected to the internet themselves, and none of these system can be accessed to input changes in programming other than with the local input means - but the navigation systems, even in what is known as "integrated" bridges do not rely on any outside connection to information system. It's simply the nature of sea voyages, even today, where connection to the outside world is often impossible and therefore everything is required to work independently of the rest of the planet.

 

[Navy_Pete]

  During Special Sea Dutymen (who would almost certainly be called for a channel passage), helmsman and throttleman were MS CSE dept technicians...and one would never find an inexperienced trainee at the helm/throttles during SSD.  Again, my experience is dated...has anything changed significantly?

Nope, still the same, although it's only ever CSE techs at SSDs (the MSEs are all required elsewhere, such as the steering gear compartment to react immediately to electrical/hydraulic failures).

Also, I can also confirm FSTO is correct about the steering systems.  In general, they have minimal interface with anything else, and it's only for remote monitoring only (ie basic alarms mirror onto the platform management system, you can see which motor is turned on, etc).  They are stand alone from everything else, and almost rudimentary in terms of the electronics.  A large part of the feedback/control loop is analogue/hydraulic, so there is nothing to hack.

You could have some kind of fault causing the rudder to go hard over to one side or the other, or get stuck while turning, or something, but it would have to be pretty significant to not be able to recover, so the odds of a catastrophic issue while also sailing in a high traffic zone are probably pretty low.

In general, you are much more likely to have the wrong helm order given, have someone accidentally push a button, or some other human error type mistake than have the steering system go crazy, which is why we always have switched on experienced helmsman any time we are doing something delicate (coming alongside, RAS, close ship manuevers, busy traffic lanes etc), and why we have the special sea dutymen (SSDs) on the watch and station bill.

 

[Occam]

Nope, still the same, although it's only ever CSE techs at SSDs (the MSEs are all required elsewhere, such as the steering gear compartment to react immediately to electrical/hydraulic failures).

Good to see things haven't changed...it worked well.  I should have expanded "MS CSE dept technicians" to "Master Seaman CSE Dept technicians" for clarity.  Most people who have done any sea time know that stokers get nosebleeds from the altitude on the bridge. 

 

[Brash]

Well, let's see: FSTO has more than 21 years of service as a naval officer and is intimately knowledgeable of all systems found on a bridge and had to qualify and remain qualified by showing his understanding of their functioning. So I would say he has both experience and certainty.

This was not to point out a lack of experience as a Naval Office, but a question as to his technical expertise and qualifications in auditing SCADA systems.

You may do that for systems that receive or can receive inputs from other systems that are computers and therefore can be "hacked" and re-program. That is not the case of warship steering systems: they do not receive inputs from computers at all. Only mechanical inputs from human operators or electrical/electronic inputs from non-programmable system that cannot be hacked themselves, such as the gyrocompass or a GPS feed.

I partly agree with your assertion that if a system receives input from an MMI or is directly networked it is [easier] to compromise. Contrary to your assertion however, systems consisting of electrical/electronic signals can and have been compromised. Please see malicious side-channel attack scenarios.

Quite true about the jeep Cherokee, but that is because the brake system is plugged into an onboard computer, as an input source, so that the "intelligent" cruise control or the pedestrian / collision avoidance programming can perform its function. On the other hand, my 2015 F-150 pick-up has the old "dumb" cruise control, whose sole input is my actual setting of the speed I want from the buttons on my dash. The brakes are therefore not accessed by any computer and they can't be actuated by a hacker. Same for my very modern electronic thermostat at home. It has an electronic board, with ROM memory where the program that runs my HVAC resides, but the programming is one time -unchangeable and the system is not connected to anything. It would never work with "remote" domotique programs on my cell phone - but on the other hand, no jackass will ever be able to turn my system off when I am not there, even if they get their hands on my intelligent phone.  ;D

With all respect, I do not believe you have assessed your vehicles system thoroughly. Many manufactures likewise have been caught simply designing for the use case of their systems, and not designing for the abuse case. (ie, have you considered your ABS system, stability controls, transmission controls, transaxle controls?
Likewise with your thermostat, perhaps it contains only ROM (I doubt it), that would mean an attack would not maintain persistence, but that is a minor detail.

You obviously don't know how GPS and AIS work at sea.

Let's start with GPS. It's not an app like on your iPhone, the receivers (that's what they are: radio-receivers) can only receive the very specific frequency that the constellation of GPS satellites transmit on and can only receive the very specific encoded time signal sent from those satellites. Nothing else can possibly be received or processed by a GPS receiver. And the receivers are not computers - they can't be programmed. When you hear people talking about "programming their GPS" all they are really doing is manually inputing way points and then, the receiver simply makes spherical trig calculations to determine bearings and distance to steer between way points. I am talking at sea here. There is more computing going on in your car GPS than a sea going one. In your car you can look up a final destination and then the GPS will figure out from it's onboard maps the best route to follow. At sea, we have to decide where the way points will be and it's only a straight calculation in the GPS box. Even if you pair the GPS with the electronic charts, you can't just tell the GPS: I am in Hong Kong and am going to Vancouver. Your ship's GPS can't decide the whole route on its on and plot it for you. You can, however manually input the full route you want to follow on electronic charts and THEN tell the GPS to follow it. It will then input pure heading into the auto-helm, that will then follow that course using the Gyro-compass bearing input. Can GPS be jammed? It's radio signal that is very specific in the SHF range. I suppose it could be, but the jamming cannot be directional: you would be jamming everyone's GPS in the area: We would have known here because all the ship's would have gone crazy in the strait.

As for AIS, at sea, it is again here a radio transmitted signal. It is not the compiled image that you access on your computer at home. That image is compiled by groups that monitor AIS signals from space satellites and compile the data and conserve the data for re-use. But at sea, each ship transmits it's ID information via VHF radio signal on the approved frequency/channel, and everyone receives it from the ships in their vicinity only via that same radio. Again you could have jamming, but again everyone in the area would be jammed ad you would have known it right away. The ships would still all show up on radar however - and the only people that can jam radars are the military.

I know very well the functioning of GPS and AIS systems. My assertion was that these systems could best be used influence human factors for effect, through deception scenarios.
Please see the recent detection of spoofing in the Black Sea for an example. This deception could be employed against a mentally stressed bridge crew on a warship, or inexperienced civilian mariners operating in close proximity.

See my comments in yellow above, Brashendeavours. But that's OK. Your concerns are valid points from people used to the ways of the internet or any other interconnected system that relies on computers that re programmable/re-pragrammable. That is simply not the case with any of the navigation systems on ships - many of the propulsion and power systems onboard are controlled by computers, but even then, they are not connected to the internet or other systems that would be connected to the internet themselves, and none of these system can be accessed to input changes in programming other than with the local input means - but the navigation systems, even in what is known as "integrated" bridges do not rely on any outside connection to information system. It's simply the nature of sea voyages, even today, where connection to the outside world is often impossible and therefore everything is required to work independently of the rest of the planet.

Again with respect, I do not believe the above statements to be true. They are dangerous assertions.  I do not believe they are well grounded in today's reality of the expertise and equipment available to threat actors, that can be used to compromise our systems. Systems that are often underestimated in terms of their technical complexities and interconnections.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Good to see things haven't changed...it worked well.  I should have expanded "MS CSE dept technicians" to "Master Seaman CSE Dept technicians" for clarity.  Most people who have done any sea time know that stokers get nosebleeds from the altitude on the bridge. 

Right, sorry, that makes far more sense; normally a mix of LS and MS so gesthalted it to the department and not the rank.

Occasionally someone suggests the ETs and HTs would get in on it, but that has pretty much gone away with the trade amalgamantion.

 

[Loachman]

This was not to point out a lack of experience as a Naval Office, but a question as to his technical expertise and qualifications in auditing SCADA systems.

So what are your technical expertise and qualifications? We know those who've been on this Site for many years - they've established their credibility. Your profile is empty, and you are a complete stranger who waltzed in and immediately challenged an established member without even a "Hi, I'm...".

Please feel free to make a second first impression.

 

[Navy_Pete]

This was not to point out a lack of experience as a Naval Office, but a question as to his technical expertise and qualifications in auditing SCADA systems.

I'm an engineer; it's not a SCADA system.  Let it go mate.

 

[tomahawk6]

The bodies of all 10 missing sailors have been recovered. Grim work for the divers but it gives the families a big step toward closure.

https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/navy-recovers-bodies-of-all-10-missing-uss-mccain-sailors-1.484745#.WaOL9Te0m70


YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Navy and Marine Corps divers have recovered the bodies of all 10 missing USS John S. McCain sailors killed in a collision last week, the Navy said Monday.

The Yokosuka-based guided-missile destroyer was traveling to Singapore for a routine port visit when it collided with a Liberian-flagged oil tanker, injuring five sailors and leaving 10 missing.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

As for mechaincal mishaps, a BC Ferry ran into a marina, because a shipyard refit neglected to fit a cotter pin into the linkage to the gearbox, the pivot pin popped out and the ferry would not go out of gear. As for GPS spoofing, that is a real issue that can happen, however an alert crew following standard procedures will catch that issue quickly. In the CCG while on autopilot and/or using the Gyro-compass the quartermaster was expected to inspect the magnetic heading and compare it to the Gyro heading. I was the QM when we had a Gyro failure and we noted a minor difference at first, then a few minutes later noted a larger difference. I had alerted the Mate on the first inspection and using radar and visual bearing we could see things were not right. We switched to magnetic and continued on till we could get a tech to fix the gyro. The best safety feature is having a crew/officer relationship that allows a seaman to say 'something is not right" and have the mate accept it and check it, without belittling them if they are wrong.   

 

[Ping Monkey]

Maybe today’s Navy is just not very good at driving ships


http://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy-swos-a-culture-in-crisis/

In the wake of two fatal collisions of Navy warships with commercial vessels, current and former senior surface warfare officers are speaking out, saying today’s Navy suffers from a disturbing problem: The SWO community is just not very good at driving ships.


The two collisions — and a total of 17 sailors lost at sea this summer — have raised concerns about whether this generation of surface fleet officers lack the basic core competency of their trade.


The problem is years in the making. Now, the current generation of officers rising into command-level billets lacks the skills, training, education and experience needed to operate effectively and safely at sea, according to current and former officers interviewed by Navy Times.


“There is a systemic cultural wasteland in the SWO community right now, especially at the department head level,” said retired Navy Capt. Rick Hoffman, who commanded the cruiser Hue City and the frigate DeWert and who, after retirement, taught SWOs ship handling in Mayport.


“We do not put a premium on being good mariners,” Hoffman said. “We put a premium on being good inspection takers and admin weenies.”


The series of accidents this year — and specifically the Aug. 20 collision of the destroyer John S. McCain — has shaken the Navy to its core.


Pacific Fleet boss Adm. Scott Swift sent an internal message to his commanders saying the accidents occurred while conducting “the most basic of operations,” according to a copy of the message obtained by Navy Times.


Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson ordered a worldwide halt to Navy operations, a one-day “pause” that aims to get the fleet back on track.


Yet many current and former officers say the problem dates back to 2003, when the Navy made severe cuts to SWO’s initial training under the belief the young officers would just learn their trade at sea.


At the same time, the Navy’s growing reliance on technology has eroded basic seamanship skills, former officers say.


Another factor is the timing of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the surface warfare community was hit hard by the demand for individual augmentees to support those ground operations, further robbing these officers of shipboard training and experience.


“There is a growing suspicion among a small circle of current and former COs that chickens may be coming home to roost,” retired Capt. Kevin Eyer, who commanded three Aegis cruisers, wrote in Proceedings Magazine online after the McCain collision.


The growing problem has festered in a SWO culture that many believe is notoriously toxic. Competition and careerism make officers afraid to voice concerns and create an “everyone for themselves” mentality.


“Most department heads I had were afraid to go to the captain with anything that might look bad for them — they did everything they did to protect their own reputations and wanted nothing to hamper them from eventually getting in the CO seat themselves,” said former Lt. Jonathan Parin, who served onboard the destroyer James E. Williams.


“We’re fostering an environment that is counter to becoming a competent professional mariner and instead it’s about looking out for yourself,” Parin told Navy Times.


Hoffman says he and his fellow SWO alumni are speaking out now in an attempt to get the Navy to make a full rudder correction and get back to the basics when it comes to driving ships and training junior surface warfare officers.


TRAINING IN A BOX


For nearly 30 years, all new surface warfare officers spent their first six months in uniform at the Surface Warfare Officer’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, learning the theory behind driving ships and leading sailors as division officers.


But that changed in 2003. The Navy decided to eliminate the “SWOS Basic” school and simply send surface fleet officers out to sea to learn on the job. The Navy did that mainly to save money, and the fleet has suffered severely for it, said retired Cmdr. Kurt Lippold.


“The Navy has cut training as a budgetary device and they have done it at the expense of our ability to operate safely at sea,” said Lippold, who commanded the destroyer Cole in 2000 when it was attacked by terrorists in Yemen.


After 2003, each young officer was issued a set of 21 CD-ROMs for computer-based training — jokingly called “SWOS in a Box” — to take with them to sea and learn. Young officers were required to complete this instructor-less course in between earning their shipboard qualifications, management of their divisions and collateral duties.


“The elimination of SWOS Basic was the death knell of professional SWO culture in the United States Navy,” Hoffman said. “I’m not suggesting that … the entire surface warfare community is completely barren of professionalism. I’m telling you that there are systemic problems, particularly at the department head level, where they are timid, where they lack resolve and they don’t have the sea time we expect.”


In recent years, there’s been a push to re-energize SWO training. And on paper, they’ve got a course for every level of SWO — all the way up to the commanding officer level.


Young SWOs now get about nine weeks in fleet concentration area classrooms. Generally, these new officers report to their ship first and then get a seat in school within the first couple of months on board.


But, Parin said, “only a couple of days are dedicated to navigation and mariner skills. The rest is damage control and other material division officer-specific training.”


Another eight weeks of school comes between an officer’s first and second division officer tours. They are taught more advanced skills, but still, the professional mariner instruction isn’t what it should be, Hoffman said.


That’s still just a fraction of the original training.


In response to questions from Navy Times, Richardson said the fleet-wide review of Navy operations that he initiated after the McCain collision “will take a hard look at individual training and professional development, to include Surface Warfare Officer School.


“It is the Navy’s responsibility to ensure that our SWOs receive the training they need before they go to sea, and we take that responsibility very seriously,” said Richardson.


These criticisms began to surface years ago. In 2010, then Lt. Cmdr. Marc A. Drage, then a student at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, wrote an article titled “Transforming the Surface Warfare Officer Training Curriculum,” hoping at the time to spark some discussion and correction of the issue.


“The elimination of [SWOS Basic] has been detrimental to the education of SWO [division officers],” Drage wrote. “The necessity for practice in a ship handling simulator has and will remain to be a priority throughout the development of SWOs as professional mariners.”


Decisions made for saving money have now “posed more leadership, logistical and administrative problems,” Drage wrote.


Now for the first time, almost 15 years after that major change in surface warfare training, that first generation of officers who received “SWOS in a Box” are now senior department heads and will soon assume command-level assignments aboard warships.


Hoffman says that some officers have been fortunate to serve under good COs who took the time to teach them, but more often, mentoring never occurred. The result is that ships at sea today are skippered by officers who lack of a fundamental understanding of what being a competent mariner truly is.


“The bottom line is that we don‘t train our junior officers well and we now have department heads without the training and experience they really need.”


TOO MUCH TECHNOLOGY


As the search-and-rescue effort to find 10 missing sailors was underway in the South China Sea in late August, the Navy’s top officer said one option for addressing concerns about Navy seamanship and readiness was to look to the defense industry for help.


“We’re always operating systems, right? And those systems are provided by our industrial partners,” Richardson said. “So, we want to make sure we’re looking as compressively as possible in terms of optimizing or improving the way we use those systems.”


But Hoffman said that’s a symptom of a larger ill: The Navy has grown too dependent on technology.


“The CNO is suggesting that there is a technical solution and we are looking to industry to provide a solution,” Hoffman said. “I say this is about basic mariner skills and we need to put a premium on being good mariners, training and maintaining proficiency.”


A Navy official told Navy Times that the CNO’s comments were made in the context of a greater partnership in industry, and that the Navy isn’t looking to industry to help them solve basic seamanship issues. 


Still, too much reliance on technology is an easy crutch, and not a substitute for good-old ship driving skills, he said.


“They didn’t run aground, they hit another moving object,” he said, referring to the two major collisions this summer. “If I am staring at my radar, nav chart, phone or other watch standers, then I am not looking out the window,” Hoffman said.


There’s no substitute for using your own eyes, he added.


“A radar can tell you something is out there, but it can’t tell you if it’s turning,” Hoffman said. “Only your eyes can tell you that. You have to put your eyes on the iron.”


GROUND WARS


The training of today’s SWOs was further eroded by the Pentagon’s focus on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before 2010, many Navy officers who were expected to learn on the job were not on ships at all.


During critical times in their professional development, they were taken away from their ships and sent to serve as individual augmentees with soldiers and Marines fighting in land-based operations.


A 2011 study by the Center for Naval Analyses identified SWOs as one of the six hardest hit officer designators by IA requirements. The cost, the study said, was the loss of hundreds of “man-years” in the fleet.


“The Navy did nothing to help them make up for that lost time, professionally. They never gave them the chance to get back what they lost,” Lippold said.


“That year went away and when they came back, they were expected to pick up and move on as if they’d been driving ships the whole time.”


CULTURE


Parin said today’s Navy culture rewards checking the box on qualifications, passing inspections and stacking resumes with career-minded assignments.


Officers spend very little time learning basic navigation skills or other essential seamanship. That results in a feeling, he said, of never really knowing what you are doing.


“We moved around jobs so much that you would just start to get the hang of what you were doing and you‘d be moved on,” he said. “You never really got to know anything well, and the pressure to qualify was and is intense so it’s about qualifying and not learning.”


Too much busy work drains the energy of the officers who are responsible for the ship and its safety. Often, those officers are simply exhausted from lack of sleep. It’s probably not a coincidence, Hoffman says, that both of the collisions happened in the wee hours of the morning, when already fatigued sailors and officers are standing watches with little or no sleep under their belts.


“When we do go to sea, we have a huge requirement to do engineering drills, combat systems training, etc., which will take precedence over the need for rested and alert watch standers,” Hoffman said.


“If the CO is focused on the next inspection or assessment, he is not focused on his real mission — to safely go from place to place and be prepared to deliver ordnance when required.”

 

[blacktriangle]

I think segments of this thread would be a great future read for potential MARS officers. Just a thought.

 

[dimsum]

I think segments of this thread would be a great future read for potential all MARS officers. Just a thought.

FTFY.  I'm willing to bet that this and the Fitzgerald are quickly becoming case studies already.

 

[tomahawk6]

The crew has been performing depot level maintenance.From 1 June to 1 July they completed over 200 jobs. To my mind this confirms the theory of a mechanical failure of some kind.

https://blog.usni.org/posts/2017/08/30/are-we-patting-ourselves-on-the-back-with-a-dagger

Questions:
– 40% of the maintenance performed by ship’s company was actually depot level work. Is the ship manned to not only perform required ship-level maintenance, but 66% more maintenance that should be performed at a depot-level facility?
– Why were these depot-level repairs not done at the appropriate facility? Is this normal for 7th Fleet? If so, why? If not, why was the MCCAIN doing this?
– What unit-level training, PMS, watch, or rest requirements were the crewmembers not able to do because they were doing this depot-level maintenance?

There is also the last paragraph quoted above. MCCAIN was commissioned in 1994. She has 23 years of commissioned service. If she is 23 and our Sailors consider her an “old ship” but one in good condition compared to others of similar age – what does that tell you about this assumption?

The Navy historically retires destroyers and cruisers at about 30 years. Now it plans to keep its older Arleigh Burkes in service 35 years and the newer ones for 40. “The longest I can find we have kept a warship in service since World War II [was] the nuclear cruiser Long Beach,” said naval historian Norman Polmar. “She was in service 37.9 years.” Allied nations have kept former US Navy vessels going for even longer, but they don’t sail them around the world the way we do, he said: “Our ships wear out become we run them so hard.” “We don’t have a lot of recent experience operating destroyers into their thirties,” agreed Congressional Research Service analyst Ronald O’Rourke. “We may be in for some surprises if we do keep ships that long.”
We need a serious, blunt, and open ended discussion about what we are doing about manning our ships properly so we don’t do to the BURKEs what we did to the SPRUANCEs. We need to look even closer at what we need to do with shore depot-level maintenance.

If we want to fight a war in WESTPAC, as we discussed in the second half of Sunday’s Midrats, we need to bring back Destroyer Tenders sooner more than later as well.

What we don’t need to do is shrug our shoulders and carry on as before – and hope we don’t have the same problems.

If we find the money to build our fleet to 355, it will be a false victory if we don’t man that fleet properly and have the depot level repair facilities to go with them. If we do that, we’ll just have a bunch of tired Sailors driving rusting hulks in to merchant ships to the disgust of our friends and to the comfort of our enemies.


http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=101928

YELLOW SEA (NNS) -- The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), nicknamed the "Big Bad John," continues to maintain material readiness while out at sea.

The crew has continued to maintain and improve the material condition of the ship since completing, and scoring above average on the Type Commander Mid-Cycle Inspection (MCI) earlier this year. The ship plans to return to Yokosuka, Japan later this year in a better state of material readiness than when it departed.

"We are not letting this deployment eat away at our material readiness," said Cmdr. Jessie Sanchez, the executive officer of McCain. "We continue to maintain our upkeep, so that when we come back, we are just as good if not better than when we left."

Since getting underway, Big Bad John has closed over 350 maintenance and repair jobs with at least 100 of those jobs being classified as "depot-level" jobs. Depot-level jobs are maintenance jobs that are considered beyond the capability of ship's forces, and, are typically conducted in the ship-yard or by contractors. The repairs included 403 discrepancies discovered during the MCI.

"In the past month, from the beginning of June to the first of July, we have completed over 204 jobs," said Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Patat, a maintenance material officer aboard McCain. "Over 40 percent of the jobs were depot-level jobs and yet our guys completed them. These jobs are normally done in port, yet, we are finding ways to overcome this and be self-sufficient."

McCain's Repair Division conducts on average 180 hours of preventative maintenance a week on all their equipment.

"This is the fifth ship I've been on," said Chief (Select) Gas Turbine Systems Technician (Mechanical) Matthew Squazza. "It is the most ship-shape ship I've been on and it's because of the crew onboard always pushing to get the job done. Coming to a ship this old and in this good of a condition speaks for itself."

McCain's readiness continues with daily maintenance that in turn brings the crew closer to the goal of returning in better shape than before.

McCain, assigned to Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 15, is forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

 

[Navy_Pete]

We do depot level maintenance regularly (at least on the CM side).  Unless you need special tools or specific certifications, the techs have the training needed to do most of it, and some of them have worked in the yard so have the experience.  A lot of the depot (or 2nd line work) is based on who has time, as the crew typically has more 1st line stuff than you can accomplish in a day.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

So FMF should be a deployable asset?

 

[Lumber]

So FMF should be a deployable asset?

They have deployed over seas to conduct maintenance. They swapped out an entire LM2500 in Toulon a couple years back. (I think it was Toulon; I wasn't there. Either way, they swapped out half the entire main propulsion system while the ship was on deployment)

 

[Navy_Pete]

They come out occasionally in theatre for specific work.  We can also use OEM qualified contractors, OEM reps, other Navy's repair yards, general marine contractors etc, lots of options.

 

[tomahawk6]

Lack of time for training is a problem in 7th Fleet due to OPTEMPO. Sailors were working 100 hour weeks.Crazy !!

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/09/06/new-evidence-of-dismal-readiness-among-navys-japan-based-ships/

Readiness among the crews of Japan-based cruisers and destroyers has plummeted in recent years, leaving nearly 40 percent of crew warfare certifications expired as of June, according to a government watchdog group slated to testify before Congress Thursday.

More than two-thirds of the lapsed crew certifications  — including those for mobility-seamanship and air warfare — had been expired for at least five months, according to a copy of a Government Accountability Office testimony to Congress obtained by the Military Times.

“This represents more than a fivefold increase in the percentage of expired warfare certifications for these ships since our May 2015 report,” GAO Defense Capabilities and Management Director John H. Pendleton’s testimony read.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Some more via Jane's, shared under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) ...

USN leaders, auditors fault poor training and high op tempo for rash of collisions
Daniel Wasserbly - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, 11 September 2017

US Navy (USN) leaders and government auditors have pointed to insufficient training, poor maintenance, and high operating tempos as underlying causes for a rash of deadly USN incidents in the Pacific.

Vice-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Moran said he had long assumed that USN forces forward deployed in Japan “were the most proficient, well-trained, [and] most experienced force we have”. But “it was the wrong assumption”, he told the House Armed Services Committee on 7 September.The USS Fitzgerald was on a patrol mission about 56 n miles off the coast of Japan when it collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel on 17 June. (US Navy)The USS Fitzgerald was on a patrol mission about 56 n miles off the coast of Japan when it collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel on 17 June. (US Navy)

“The trend in the number that were asking for [maintenance] waivers is increasing at an alarming rate and it should give us all pause in how hard we’re driving the crew in 7th Fleet – changing schedules, delayed maintenance, and additional missions they’ve been asked to perform,” Adm Moran said.

Its lack of ‘readiness’ has proven deadly for the surface navy.

USS John S McCain (DDG 56) on 21 August collided with a 183 m Liberian-registered oil and chemical tanker near Singapore. Five USN sailors were injured and 10 are believed to have died.

On 1 August a sailor was reported missing from USS Stethem (DDG 63) while it was in the South China Sea. USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) on 17 June collided with a merchant vessel about 56 n miles southwest of Yokosuka, Japan, killing seven USN sailors. On 9 May USS Lake Champlain (CG 57) collided with a South Korean fishing vessel. USS Antietam (CG 54) ran aground Tokyo Bay on 31 January.

Seeing a trend after John S McCain ’s collision, US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson on 21 August ordered “an operational pause” and a separate “comprehensive review” across the entire USN.