Surface Navy Must Refocus on Basic Seamanship.

AuthorCallender, Thomas
PositionViewpoint

In the past few months, the Navy experienced the worst peacetime surface ship collisions in over 41 years.

When the USS McCain and the USS Fitzgerald collided with commercial vessels, it claimed the lives of 17 sailors during routine "independent steaming" operations in the western Pacific Ocean.

These tragic incidents, coupled with the earlier grounding of the USS Antietam and collision of the USS Lake Champlain with a South Korean fishing vessel, have raised significant concerns about the state of the U.S. surface fleet's readiness and operational proficiency.

Of additional concern is that all of these ships were part of the Seventh Fleet and the Navy's Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF), whose area of responsibility in the Western Pacific includes some of the busiest shipping lanes in world, as well as the strategically important waters off the coasts of China, North Korea and eastern Russia.

In the wake of the McCain collision, the U.S. Navy quickly responded with several actions.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson ordered a Navy-wide 24-hour "operational pause" or "safety stand down" requiring all fleet commanders and commanding officers to ensure safe operations and identify areas for improvement.

Adm. Philip Davidson, Fleet Forces Command commander, launched a comprehensive 60-day review of surface fleet operations, training and certification of deployed ships with a focus on the FDNF ships.

And finally, Adm. Scott H. Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, relieved the Seventh Fleet Commander, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command.

While these are significant responses, will they be sufficient to alter the wayward course of U.S. Navy surface forces and Seventh Fleet?

Many in the American public have been asking how the "world's best navy" could suffer such drastic failures in basic seamanship and navigation. Shouldn't avoiding a collision be relatively simple for a U.S. Navy destroyer equipped with modern technology such as GPS and radars?

While it would be premature to speculate on the specific causes for the recent collisions, as it will be weeks or months before the Navy completes its detailed investigations, there have been significant warning signs of problems within the service and Seventh Fleet in particular. Navy leadership has warned of decreasing fleet readiness due to the high operational tempo of its ships, as well as maintenance backlogs that have resulted in some ships unable to go to sea.

In addition, several recent Government Accountability Office reports, as well as a 2010 Fleet Review Panel on...

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