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Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

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Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#201

Former Navy (nuclear propulsion) here. That by no means makes me an expert, by I will share a couple of thoughts: Ships rust. Officers don't chip paint and paint. Technical enlisted and NCOs don't chip paint and paint either. Junior, and especially unrated (not trained in a vocational area yet) enlisted do. This looks like a simple case of being undermanned, and/or having "too many chiefs and not enough braves". Real…

> Officers don't chip and paint.

In a "morale emergency" an effective leader will lead from the front, showing the behavior that she needs her team to show.

The chief of maintenance on those ships should be chipping and painting in their free time until the people under them have enough shame and/or pride to start doing it correctly on their shifts.

I once had a problem with "that's not in my job description", pitting security guards against truck unloaders. I took one trip with 25kg of rice on my shoulder and then looked back to see a line of security guards following behind me.

Moo.

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I’m replying to someone who would know what those acronyms are. The ELI5 is that the Navy pays officers who do the core ship/flying activities quite well. Compared to their civilian peers, Navy lawyers, doctors, and cyber people don’t get paid well. The posted article is about rust on ships. A ships management team is paid well. Low pay is unlikely to be the cause of dissatisfaction. To be clear, “paid well”…

I was a SWO before going into medicine. My first divo tour was in the engineering dept and my second was in weapons. Did well in both. I'm not sure I agree with you about the SWOs or pilots getting paid well relative to their civilian peers.

Maybe it’s ultimately a subjective thing. If one feels underpaid, they are underpaid. Then it’s a matter if there’s an employer that agrees, and it just takes one.

I’d just note that the service academies crowd the rankings for highest paid graduates at early/mid career https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/bachelors#ful...

Anecdotally, I had a reservist friend with a Harvard MBA who realized he could pull down more money as an activated reservist in Bahrain than his role at BlackRock.

Your mileage may vary…

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incorrect. In World War 1 both sides had extremely rigid operational plans. The German operational plan even included specific times down to the hour, for when specific bridges and road junctions should be captured. Indeed, what saved the Entente in World War 1 was the fact that Belgium, which had been expected to roll over and allow the German army unmolested free passage, actually called up its military and…

Ferguson, the author, backs it up with statistics. "As Table 32 shows, the greatest of all the paradoxes of the First World War is that, despite being disastrously disadvantaged in economic terms, the Central Powers were far more successful in inflicting death on their enemies. According to the best available totals for wartime military deaths, some 5.4 million men fighting for the Entente powers and their allies los…

That's very interesting! My understanding of World War 1 is from Tuchman's The Guns of August and Clark's The Sleepwalkers, and both of those don't seem to rate the Germans as being more flexible at the beginning of the war than the British.

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ferguson, the author, backs it up with statistics. "As Table 32 shows, the greatest of all the paradoxes of the First World War is that, despite being disastrously disadvantaged in economic terms, the Central Powers were far more successful in inflicting death on their enemies. According to the best available totals for wartime military deaths, some 5.4 million men fighting for the Entente powers and their allies los…

That's very interesting! My understanding of World War 1 is from Tuchman's The Guns of August and Clark's The Sleepwalkers , and both of those don't seem to rate the Germans as being more flexible at the beginning of the war than the British.

There's endless more stuff to read! I only made it through half of TGoA, and didn't know about TS. Thanks for the tip!

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#206

Former Navy (nuclear propulsion) here. That by no means makes me an expert, by I will share a couple of thoughts: Ships rust. Officers don't chip paint and paint. Technical enlisted and NCOs don't chip paint and paint either. Junior, and especially unrated (not trained in a vocational area yet) enlisted do. This looks like a simple case of being undermanned, and/or having "too many chiefs and not enough braves". Real…

> Officers don't chip and paint. In a "morale emergency" an effective leader will lead from the front, showing the behavior that she needs her team to show. The chief of maintenance on those ships should be chipping and painting in their free time until the people under them have enough shame and/or pride to start doing it correctly on their shifts. I once had a problem with "that's not in my job description", pittin…

> In a "morale emergency" an effective leader will lead from the front, showing the behavior that she needs her team to show.

Maintaining the paint on a destroyer is really hard to do, and the sailors I served with, well, there was no shortage of people willing to work and lead by example. That said, picture a 154 meter destroyer and compare that to a 4" paint scraper. How many effective leaders does that take?

>Moo

Agree

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