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From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 15:46:37 GMT
My houseguest last night was a young man of my acquaintance who is
just coming off his first tour as an officer on an SSBN. (He was in
transit to his next duty station on the opposite coast.) He related
to me a picture of goings-on in the fleet that I, despite all my usual
cynicism and pessimism about such things, found absolutely shocking.
Among other, less serious outrages, he told me that first-tour junior
officers on SSBN's are currently being yanked out of their off-crew
rotation and sent to deployed SSN's for two months' service. So the
rotation is something like: Come off a workup cycle and 12-week
patrol, then 6 weeks or so in port, then 8 weeks at sea again, then 6
weeks in port, then your crew takes back the boat and you begin the
cycle again.
I believe the proper response to this is, "Thank you, sir, may I have
another?"
Has anyone reading this observed this? What's the general reaction to
this? Just how bad IS it out there? Are we looking at an even lower
JO retention rate in submarines? Can it GET any lower?
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 22:56:40 GMT
In article <36f01f96.29898792@news.idt.net>, Steve Atkatz
<atozdbf@idt.net> wrote:
> >Among other, less serious outrages, he told me that first-tour junior
> >officers on SSBN's are currently being yanked out of their off-crew
> >rotation and sent to deployed SSN's for two months' service. So the
> >rotation is something like: Come off a workup cycle and 12-week
> >patrol, then 6 weeks or so in port, then 8 weeks at sea again, then 6
> >weeks in port, then your crew takes back the boat and you begin the
> >cycle again.
>
> Hey, what is it with these boomer pukes? SSN's routinely spent >300
> days/yr at sea, and that went on for most of the cold war.
>
> Having 2 crews and spending >50% of your time ashore, while needed to
> keep the boomers at sea while complying with treaty requirements is a
> good idea, it is also a terrible waste of highly trained manpower and
> its about time that they're doing something about it.
Well, I speak as someone who always regarded it as highly amusing that
these guys get a PIN for doing 70 days at sea. A freaking PIN, for
chrissakes! That's a little galling to the other seagoing
communities.
But these guys aren't exactly goofing off during their off-crew time,
either. And given the incredibly marginal benefit of doing this (a
first-tour JO isn't exactly going to be all that useful in his first
two months aboard a new boat), against the rather high cost (yanking
said JO out of his off-crew training cycle for something like nine or
ten weeks), I just can't see how it can possibly make sense.
It seems like the main effect of this policy would be to make these
poor bastards hate their lives, the Navy and the submarine force even
more than they probably already do. Not a smart strategy during a
manning crisis.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 15:30:26 GMT
In article <36f06f57.4425589@nntp.cts.com>, <random@notatnetcom.com> wrote:
> >>Well, I speak as someone who always regarded it as highly amusing that
> >>these guys get a PIN for doing 70 days at sea. A freaking PIN, for
> >>chrissakes! That's a little galling to the other seagoing
> >>communities.
> >
> >When the other seagoing communities manage to conduct a strategic
> >deterrent patrol maintaining an effective DEFCON ONE posture they
> >can wear it too. The pin has nothing to do with time underway.
>
> I did CONDITION II and III steaming for 22 months and I never got a
> pin. I guess those of us who don't hide, don't deserve an award for
> being fully combat ready on no notice in a war zone.
I can't touch that story, but I've certainly steamed without seeing
land longer than any SSBN patrol, also in a "war zone" (of a sort). A
single SSBN patrol performs a critically important national defense
function, but arguably a bit less important than keeping the oil
flowing out of the Arabian Gulf. And it's no more arduous than that
duty.
> >Doubly agree. These officers, even more than pilots, have civilian
> >options.
>
> Every single one of us has civilian options. Why do you think one
> should be more highly compensated than another who actually spends
> more time at sea but holds an equal professionalism and professional
> knowlege?
Judging by what I've seen of the communities, no one in the Navy works
the kinds of hours or suffers the kind of privations of the SSN
community, and this is followed closely by the SSBN community. It's
just insane. An average day at sea for a non-nuke surface crewman is
probably an easier go of it than an average day in port for an SSN
crewman.
Besides, compensation isn't determined by what you "deserve." It's
determined by two things and only two things: supply, and demand. If
we don't start throwing money at people who sign up for nuclear power,
we're asking for some really serious trouble.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 16:23:18 GMT
In article <36f06f3b.4397628@nntp.cts.com>, <random@notatnetcom.com>
wrote:
> >But these guys aren't exactly goofing off during their off-crew time,
> >either. And given the incredibly marginal benefit of doing this (a
> >first-tour JO isn't exactly going to be all that useful in his first
> >two months aboard a new boat), against the rather high cost (yanking
> >said JO out of his off-crew training cycle for something like nine or
> >ten weeks), I just can't see how it can possibly make sense.
>
> You and your lot are saying that these idiots were sufficiently
> trained to do the mission a couple of months ago but now they need
> complete retraining on everything you already signed them off on as
> being competent to handle. Do you wonder why SWOs laugh their heads
> off when they hear about sub mariners? "Gotta get retrained every 3
> months? How stupid are you guys?!!!"
No CO is going to let someone walk aboard his ship and take the conn
just because he's qualified on another ship. There's significant
overhead for doing *any* job. I don't care how sharp or well-trained
or whatever an officer is -- he's *not* going to be contributing
effectively to a crew within a month after he's arrived, and his
contribution will be marginal at best over two full months.
> Besides, for all of the JO's, was not their job to operate a submarine
> underway? How can actually operating a submarine underway NOT
> contribute markedly to their training? Is it better that they
> simulate this aspect of their training? I'm still laughing.
Not a bad point. But the point of off-crew simulator training is for
the *crew* to learn to work together smoothly and effectively, not for
the benefit of the individuals' mastery of procedures. When several
members of the crew are missing from these exercises, it detracts
mightily from this goal.
> The specialists that might need refresher training were the STRAT WEPS
> guys but you did for them didn't you? You decided to screw them over
> and get rid of them as unnecessary. I'm still laughing!!!
This strikes a nerve with me. If the Navy hadn't gotten rid of this
program, I'd be a submariner today, no question about it.
> >It seems like the main effect of this policy would be to make these
> >poor bastards hate their lives, the Navy and the submarine force even
> >more than they probably already do. Not a smart strategy during a
> >manning crisis.
>
> And yet the poor bastards still have a better retention rate than
> SWOS. Makes you wonder who is smarter......
I would think that this is a bit more complex than it seems on the
surface (ha ha). A SWO officer knows pretty darn well that his
employment prospects on the outside are nearly nil, as far as trading
on his Navy experience. (Only NFO's are in a worse situation as far
as this goes.) A surface officer coming to the end of his service
obligation has a horrible decision to make: get out, or be prepared to
stay in FOREVER, unless of course he can get into grad school or
something else. I have personal, direct knowledge that the full
implications of the decision are not lost on officers in this
situation.
A nuke officer, on the other hand, can decide to sign on for another
tour, with the full knowledge that if the picture changes, or the
situation becomes truly intolerable, he can bail out and land a pretty
sweet job immediately. He has less of a disincentive to take that
next tour.
And, of course, the relative compensation between submarine JO's and
surface JO's skews those retention statistics dramatically. What do
you think the picture would look like if they made exactly the same
amount of money? I don't think they're as stupid as you seem to want
to believe.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 16:12:16 GMT
In article <19990318015441.00748.00000531@ng-fi1.aol.com>, Jenydevine
<jenydevine@aol.com> wrote:
> Is this practice voluntary, or are the officers forced or "coerced to
> volunteer" for this SSN duty??
Well, as the saying goes, "There's a reason they're called 'orders.'"
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 20:35:14 GMT
In article <36f03fca.34308057@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Steve Bartman
<sbartman@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >Hey, what is it with these boomer pukes? SSN's routinely spent >300
> >days/yr at sea, and that went on for most of the cold war.
>
> No they didn't. Not in the 1980s at least. Over 200, yeah, but some
> of that was local ops. The Charleston SSNs were averaging about 220
> when I was there 1981-1984.
Thanks for the factual input. That ">300" figure sounded incredible
to me ("incredible" as in "not to be believed," that is). I don't see
how a ship could physically stand that kind of duty / maintenance
cycle, much less the crew.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 02:02:05 GMT
In article <36F1AB5F.6FA476A1@iion.net>, Kylan <kdillis@iion.net>
wrote:
> I recall an instructor at ET "A" school saying that his SSN was
> deployed for something like 330+ days out of one calendar year, back
> in '78 or '79. This instructor was a straight-shooter, not know for
> BS'ing us.
I have little problem accepting the possibility that, in one calendar
year, one submarine actually suffered such a fate. I flatly refuse to
believe that such a pace of operations was sustained "routinely" from
year to year for a significant number -- much less all -- subs in the
fleet. It just isn't physically possible.
I married into a submariner family. (BIG time.) My in-laws consider
the "routinely ... >300" figure to be pure bullshit.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 14:13:27 GMT
In article <36f1fa2d.7632073@nntp.cts.com>, <random@notatnetcom.com>
wrote:
>(Cue Random to step in with his patented rant about SSNs that didn't
>come out to play with him due to non-watertightness.)
>
> You got it! Talk about racking up a pathetic performance record.
> Talk is easy, but in 17 months on a destroyer, the damned sub was
> never there. Not for lack of trying, just their general inability
> to get underway and meet scheduled committments.
Well, I'm *way* down the scale from random on this issue, but I have
to acknowledge that the submarine on-station performance for training
with the S-3's was something like 50% or less during my own three
years as NASNI. That's not counting the ones who had to pull out of
an exercise mid-way because of some engineering casualty (one of which
I actually heard acoustically!).
It really wasn't all that impressive. I recall wondering whether
their real world commitment-meeting record was any better than what I
observed.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 19:55:38 GMT
In article <36f1f9a1.7491855@nntp.cts.com>, <random@notatnetcom.com>
wrote:
> >No CO is going to let someone walk aboard his ship and take the conn
> >just because he's qualified on another ship. There's significant
> >overhead for doing *any* job. I don't care how sharp or well-trained
> >or whatever an officer is -- he's *not* going to be contributing
> >effectively to a crew within a month after he's arrived, and his
> >contribution will be marginal at best over two full months.
>
> Yeah, we did it for 4 years. We called it operational necessity.
> Fortunately Surface warfare trains it men to be flexible. We had the
> smartest people in the service so we could meet the mission without
> having to tell the President to Fuc* off. I took the conn the day I
> reported aboard and got underway. 5 days later I brought the ship
> alongside for refueling. Gee, you sub mariners must be slow.
a) I'm not a "sub mariner" or even a submariner. Never have been. I
am a Deep Water Sailor, though (got a card to prove it and
everything); perhaps that's what has you confused. (Hint: check my
.sig. It's attached to every post I make.)
b) If you are contending that it is routine on any ship of the US Navy
to allow a new TAD officer from another vessel of an entirely,
radically different, class, to take the conn for getting underway,
without passing a board or even a review on the part of the captain
. . . well, the only polite way I can put this is to say that I'm
still a bit skeptical.
> Did you lot ever hear of configuration management? Don't subs have
> a type commander? You'd think what you do is rocket science when
> ANYONE could tell you it's seamanship.
Again, I don't and didn't do it. What I did in the Navy couldn't
possibly be described as rocket science, unless you wish to count
the firing of Zuni rockets. (I don't.)
Configuration management, where I came from -- and may I make so bold
as to suggest that perhaps it was a wee bit stricter and more critical
in my own community than in yours? -- does not apply to platforms of
completely different basic types. The EA-6B bubbas don't really give
too much of a damn what the F-18 model manager says, and vice versa.
Likewise, SSN's are pretty different beasts, from a watchstanding
perspective, from SSBN's.
> I swapped 25% of my crew every single month in a war zone and then
> engaged the enemy each month and I never had any problems. You guys
> must be truly incompetent.
Next to the self-reported assessment of your performance and the
challenges you've faced, I don't know anyone who isn't "truly
incompetent." Considering that no "war zone" has existed for more
than two months in a row during the entire term of service of anyone
now on active duty, one might be entitled to correct a little for what
politeness and respect for rank requires me to call "the sea story
factor."
(Yes, I am aware that hazardous duty pay continued in the Arabian Gulf
for years after hostilities ceased there -- indeed, I personally
benefitted from this little bureaucratic artificiality. But a few
bucks a month and a small tax exemption does not a "war zone" make.)
> >A nuke officer, on the other hand, can decide to sign on for another
> >tour, with the full knowledge that if the picture changes, or the
> >situation becomes truly intolerable, he can bail out and land a pretty
> >sweet job immediately. He has less of a disincentive to take that
> >next tour.
>
> You seem to think that full employment in this economy does not
> include demonstrated program managers, engineers, system
> administrators, etc. Don't forget, most of my counterparts went to
> PGS and are immensely sellable.
I'm sorry you were left behind. Too bad even that school at Monterey
requires basic reading comprehension skills.
Anyway, I did mention the confounding factor of graduate school
directly. All other things being equal, though, a nuclear trained
officer is far, far more marketable than a surface officer. This may
or may not be reasonable or just, but that's the way it is.
> I haven't heard of a single one who left the service and got less
> money or failed to find a job and this includes many of my enlisted
> men who keep me advised of their job status. Some of them make more
> than I do. (CDR, USN)
<*snort!*> I know college dropouts who make more than a USN CDR. In
fact, I hand my own scut work over to people who make roughly that.
That's not the point.
> >And, of course, the relative compensation between submarine JO's and
> >surface JO's skews those retention statistics dramatically. What do
> >you think the picture would look like if they made exactly the same
> >amount of money? I don't think they're as stupid as you seem to want
> >to believe.
>
> Freeze Charlie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With *that* many exclamation points, how could you possibly be wrong?
> The latest information shows that even though the sub marine officer
> is paid far more than the SWO, the SWO leaves the service far more
> readily than the sub marine officer.
I'm not sure what it is you think you've discovered here, but that was
precisely my point. If SWO officers and NUC officers were paid the
same, you can bet the retention figures would skew heavily toward the
SWO. Less work on the inside + less marketability on the outside
would have the obvious and predictable effect on retention. As it is,
the pay isn't particularly close to being equal, and that's why we are
able to man our submarine force at all.
> In short, you can pay a sub marine officer to lick shi* off an oar for
> a bad job but SWOs are smarter and tend to leave the service because
> their prospects are brighter outside the navy. What does that tell
> you about the relative smarts of the two communities?
Oh, I'm learning a great deal about "relative smarts" from reading
your posts. I'm not so cruel as to base my impression of an entire
warfare community on them, though.
> As I recall the SWO retention is 28% while the Sub marine zero
> retention is 38%. I could check the stats in the early bird, but
> why bother.
Yeah, why bother? Who ever knew an actual *fact* to illuminate a
discussion or resolve a dispute?
If that figure is a snapshot of the end-of-service-obligation picture,
there's an alternate explanation, anyway. Because of the lengthy
training lead time, a submarine officer nearing his fifth anniversary
of commissioning is facing up to an additional year at sea if he
doesn't accept shore duty orders, thus incurring an additional service
obligation past his nominal five (six, now?) years. Because SWO's
rotate out of their first fleet tour long before that obligation is
up, they are more likely to bail out before taking that set of orders
away from shore and back to sea. This would have the appearance of
lowering SWO retention rates relative to submarine officers'. And
that's why a straight snapshot is a next to meaningless figure.
But we'll never know, will we, because you'd rather wave your hands
based on vaguely-recalled non-statistics whose basis and source are
completely unknown, than be "bother[ed]" with actually digging them
out.
> A sub mariner only acts out of personal monetary gratification while
> a SWO acts out of dedicated professionalism.
Wow. That one was beyond the pale, even for you. I wish I could say
that it makes me disbelieve that you are, in fact, a Navy O-5, but the
sad fact is that I've met your type before. Pretty shabby. Pretty
goddamned shabby.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 18:21:51 GMT
In article <36f360ef.2857078@nntp.cts.com>, <random@notatnetcom.com>
wrote:
> >b) If you are contending that it is routine on any ship of the US Navy
> >to allow a new TAD officer from another vessel of an entirely,
> >radically different, class, to take the conn for getting underway,
> >without passing a board or even a review on the part of the captain
> >. . . well, the only polite way I can put this is to say that I'm
> >still a bit skeptical.
>
> Join the non nuclear navy.
Sheesh. How many times do I have to repeat this? There is no
nuclear-powered variant of the S-3. I am not now, nor have I ever
been, nuclear trained. (I confess to having been in the NUC pipeline
once in the distant past.)
> Been there 3 times and did it. I guess we're just a bit more
> competent appearing than you are.
Letting a TAD LTJG with short experience only aboard, say, a carrier,
come aboard and stand OOD watches immediately goes well beyond
confidence in his competence and straight into misprision of assets
territory.
> >(Yes, I am aware that hazardous duty pay continued in the Arabian Gulf
> >for years after hostilities ceased there -- indeed, I personally
> >benefitted from this little bureaucratic artificiality. But a few
> >bucks a month and a small tax exemption does not a "war zone" make.)
>
> Been there in the last 3 years? It's now 100% tax free for officers
> and enlisted for all earnings in the zone. It's still a war zone by
> definition. Guess you hold those folks flying over Iraq in contempt
> since they get the big medals for a bogus mission without risk. I
> don't believe that for a second.
I think the relationship between stuff you believe and the rest of
reality has been demonstrated adequately to anyone who reads this
group.
In this case, that relationship is borne out once again. The guys who
earned the Air Medal for Southern Watch patrols were ridiculed
mercilessly by their fellow aviators on my last deployment.
Justifiably so, in my opinion: I know Vietnam- and Korea-era aviators
who earned those medals at, shall we say, a *bit* more risk to their
personal safety.
I consider it to border on offensive that the Air Medal has been
turned into a "gedunk ribbon."
> >I'm sorry you were left behind. Too bad even that school at Monterey
> >requires basic reading comprehension skills.
>
> What? I already have the post graduate degree from the war college.
Uh-huh. I got one of those, too. I don't go around calling it by
quite such a violent name as "post graduate degree," any more than I
would call my fire-fighting school completion certificate by that
term. Then again, I can afford to be a bit stricter about what I
do and don't call a "degree," so perhaps I should just go with my
more charitable impulse here and shut up about it.
> >Anyway, I did mention the confounding factor of graduate school
> >directly. All other things being equal, though, a nuclear trained
> >officer is far, far more marketable than a surface officer. This may
> >or may not be reasonable or just, but that's the way it is.
>
> Yeah, it's bogus. All officers in this economy are marketable.
Sort of. JO's leaving the Navy after a single tour are still young
enough that they're considered trainable. A 35-year-old LCDR or
junior CDR isn't going to have quite such an easy time of it outside
of the government trough, unless he has a (real) post-graduate
degree.
> Send me your collar and I'd be happy to market you. Did you note
> that SWOs are leaving the navy in higher percentages than ignorant
> sub mariners? It's true. snip the obvious that confused him
Yes, you pointed that out and I accepted it. I attributed it to
a couple of factors you seem to have missed: lower pay inside, and
a higher cost to staying on for another tour for the SWO's. So
there's less holding them in, and a "now or never" quality to
the decision to leave. (Although I admit the latter is probably
much weaker than the former.)
Probably also the SWO life is a bit less rewarding than is the
subsurface life. I admit I'm speculating wildly here, but coming to
work on Monday morning and starting the week's activities by tracking
down who did and who didn't get thrown in jail that weekend probably
isn't what most educated young men find to be a rewarding way of life.
I just don't see what the mystery is. Retention sucks because pay and
quality of life suck. For some communities, quality of life sucks
more than for others. For other communities, pay sucks more than for
some. Other, confounding factors complicate the picture a bit.
> BTW, when I mean to post something as a joke, not that you'd get it,
> I attach a, :) You don't see them because in this case, I'm not
> joking.
When your posts become so bizarre and absurd as to be indistinguish-
able from self-parody, you're wise to attach smilies to point out the
*intentional* jokes.
> The SWO retention rate is less than the nuke retention rate. Tell
> you anything? In spite of the huge nuke bonuses, sub mariners leave
> in droves appropriate to the sh** job they have.
This is a contradiction. SWO's get retained less, yet it's the
sub guys who "leave in droves"? What the hell are you trying to
say here?
> >If that figure is a snapshot of the end-of-service-obligation picture,
> >there's an alternate explanation, anyway. Because of the lengthy
> >training lead time, a submarine officer nearing his fifth anniversary
> >of commissioning is facing up to an additional year at sea if he
> >doesn't accept shore duty orders, thus incurring an additional service
> >obligation past his nominal five (six, now?) years. Because SWO's
> >rotate out of their first fleet tour long before that obligation is
> >up, they are more likely to bail out before taking that set of orders
> >away from shore and back to sea. This would have the appearance of
> >lowering SWO retention rates relative to submarine officers'. And
> >that's why a straight snapshot is a next to meaningless figure.
>
> I'm a SWO, I spent my first 6 years at sea on 3 different ships. WTF
> are you talking about?
Not the remedial cases, obviously. I'm talking about the normal
career path of a junior officer, which has him rotating out of his sea
billet at commissioning + 3.5 years, then facing a decision of
out-or-back-to-sea when his obligation is up at 5 (or 6?) years.
Compare this to a submarine officer, who at the end of his first sea
tour may be only a year or less from his end of obligated service.
His choice: stay on his ship for a year (or even longer, due to
the nature of the separation regulations), or accept orders to a
shore station and incur an additional obligation.
Even if both get out at the end of their first shore tours, the SWO
will count as "separated at end of obligation" and the sub guy will
count as "stayed in past end of obligation." It's pretty easy to see
how these statistics could get skewed, which is why I asked for
additional detail.
> >But we'll never know, will we, because you'd rather wave your hands
> >based on vaguely-recalled non-statistics whose basis and source are
> >completely unknown, than be "bother[ed]" with actually digging them
> >out.
>
> Read this month's early bird and this month's Navy Times. If these
> esoteric sources are beyond your obviously limited capability, get
> lost. Can't be bothered to dig out common references, you must be
> air farce and a troll.
Those "common references" are anything but common out here in the
sticks of Michigan. They're not stocked by normal libraries outside
of military areas. And the information I asked for isn't exactly
complex or lengthy. You might have to type a paragraph or two at
most. I'd even take your word that you were reporting it accurately.
Considering the above, along with the fact that "Navy Times" isn't
even a monthly publication -- thus rendering it impossible to check
"this month's" issue thereof -- I conclude that you are, in fact, just
bulshitting. Or perhaps lazy.
> >> A sub mariner only acts out of personal monetary gratification while
> >> a SWO acts out of dedicated professionalism.
> >
> >Wow. That one was beyond the pale, even for you. I wish I could say
> >that it makes me disbelieve that you are, in fact, a Navy O-5, but the
> >sad fact is that I've met your type before. Pretty shabby. Pretty
> >goddamned shabby.
>
> BTW, you claimed that sub mariners are driven by money, not me. Just
> look at your gratuitous remarks above.
I claimed that *everyone* is affected by monetary considerations. And
I don't have a problem with this at all. Since SWO's get a good deal
less $$$ out of the deal than do NUC-trained submarine officers, it
only stands to reason that, all other things being equal, SWO's would
leave more readily. And this is, in fact, what you claim happens. So
what's the problem?
Your petty, childish, cheap-shot comparison of the relative
professionalism of the two communities (stated without a smiley, I
note) continues to speak for itself, as well as for and about you. A
little inter-community joshing and rivalry is one thing; that comment
is quite another.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 14:33:38 GMT
In article <36f86e21.8138136@nntp.cts.com>, <random@notatnetcom.com>
wrote:
> >Sheesh. How many times do I have to repeat this? There is no
> >nuclear-powered variant of the S-3. I am not now, nor have I ever
> >been, nuclear trained. (I confess to having been in the NUC pipeline
> >once in the distant past.)
>
> Sorry, I wasn't paying attention.
Apparently not.
[Large amounts of unproductive bickering deleted.]
> >> Read this month's early bird and this month's Navy Times. If these
> >> esoteric sources are beyond your obviously limited capability, get
> >> lost. Can't be bothered to dig out common references, you must be
> >> air farce and a troll.
> >
> >Those "common references" are anything but common out here in the
> >sticks of Michigan. They're not stocked by normal libraries outside
> >of military areas. And the information I asked for isn't exactly
> >complex or lengthy. You might have to type a paragraph or two at
> >most. I'd even take your word that you were reporting it accurately.
>
> Why bother, it's obvious that you're a highly trained non-SWO pro with
> a reading problem. One of these sources is available on-line and the
> other is available via subscription.
Well, goading didn't work, so I'll try a polite request:
I'm genuinely interested in the issue of officer (and enlisted)
retention. I do not have access to "Navy Times" and their online
edition has no mention of the subject right now. You adduced a
statistic without its context, and I'm curious to see whether the
context justifies your interpretation of the stat, or mine. I am
asking you as nicely as I know how to take the trouble to type in the
couple of paragraphs' worth of material so that I (and any others who
might possibly still be paying attention) may draw our own conclusions.
> >Your petty, childish, cheap-shot comparison of the relative
> >professionalism of the two communities (stated without a smiley, I
> >note) continues to speak for itself, as well as for and about you. A
> >little inter-community joshing and rivalry is one thing; that comment
> >is quite another.
>
> If that was the case J.D. Baldwin, WHY DO YOU BELIEVE SUBMARINERS ARE
> WORTH SO MUCH MORE MONEY THAN EQUALLY PROFESSIONAL SURFACE WARFARE
> OFFICERS WHO SPEND AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE TIME AT SEA? I would ask the
> same question of any airedale.
"Worth" is a loaded word. Submariners earn more because they are paid
in *exactly* the same way as are aviators, or SWO's, or ET3's: their
pay is determined by the intersection of the supply curve and the
demand curve. It's just that simple.
You might be amused to learn that there was a very senior admiral
going around in 1990-1991 lobbying hard for massive increases in
Aviation Career Incentive Pay ("flight pay") so as to bring aviators'
incomes up to submariners' levels. His justification was not based on
retention -- retention was being managed pretty well by highly
community-specific bonus policies -- but on the basis that an
aviator's duty is "every bit as arduous" as submarine duty.
Now, I want to be very clear about this: I didn't *oppose* this plan.
I would have been perfectly happy to see it enacted. I wouldn't have
sent one dime of the money back. But I never met one single aviator
who didn't laugh out loud at the notion that our op-tempos were
anywhere *near* as ugly as those of the submarine community.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 17:07:56 GMT
In article <36fa9d71.7411168@hurricane.ispnews.com>, Interim Books
<fairwater@hurricane.net> wrote:
> I've spoken with several local 726 [class] crew, and they tell a
> *very* different story... Generally the JO's in question spend only a
> couple of weeks onboard the SSN, while the SSN is on REFTRA or
> something similiar. They do get R&R and leave time, and are certainly
> not gone for the entire off-crew. They do *NOT* deploy onboard the
> SSN. (Makes sense, what if they were scheduled for a WESTPAC?
> Routine, scheduled PERSTRANS to load / offload the JO's, and to get
> them to & from wherever the SSN is to Bangor....? I think not.)
>
> (Given that Mr Bladwin's only evidence was from one of the JO's in
> question, I felt a need to get the 'rest of the story'.)
Well, getting "the rest of the story" was why I posted in the first
place. But my source wasn't "one of the JO's in question," but a
LT coming off his first sea tour who told me this was being done
now to the new guys -- he never actually had to *do* it.
The way he told it, it was more like four weeks on the SSN (twice "a
couple of weeks"), with some travel and hurry-up-and-wait time on each
end of the trip, thus taking him out of the off-crew training cycle
for close to six weeks.
He also said these hapless bastards *were* joining the SSN's out in
WestPac. I find it easy to accept that he might have gotten that
detail wrong, since he had only second-hand knowledge of details
like that.
Whatever the specific lengths of time involved, the practice still
seems, per the subject line, insane.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Gluttons for punishment??? (WAS Re: Insane practice in submarine
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 22:03:52 GMT
In article <19990402014002.10294.00001760@ng-ch1.aol.com>, Jenydevine
<jenydevine@aol.com> wrote:
> >Well, the *smartest* thing you could have done would have been to
> >avoid signing on the dotted line and raising your right hand to begin
> >with.
>
> Wow, want to start a thread on "lying recruiters" and the like?
Dear God, no. Uncle! UNCLE, already!
Maybe life would be better for recruits, military members AND the
overall professionalism of the forces if we implemented a scheme by
which initial enlistments were, by law, exactly one year. Even though
a great many people don't even finish their training in a single year,
they're exposed to enough fleet-experienced instructors to get at
least some idea of what's in store. After that year, they can choose
to enlist for four years, or not.
After that, anyone who says he didn't know what it was going to be
like is either lying or just plain dense.
As a bonus, the forces get to weed out the non-hackers early on at a
low cost. (The expense could be cut by deferring advanced training
until after this first enlistment.) And the pressure would be on to
implement some REAL quality of life improvements for our junior
enlisted, instead of the constant barrage of lip service to same we've
seen for, oh, the last ten years. Everybody wins.
The notion, therefore, has zero chance of receiving any kind of
serious consideration. Please forget I brought it up.
> Plus, I recall some CO applications being totally stonewalled by
> commands....especially at-sea vessels, where the captain wanted to
> screw with the applicant, and didn't want to lose a warm body for a
> med cruise or something. 90% of the time, the person went AWOL in
> response.
Again, the CO route is more effort-intensive than the AWOL route.
Even in the face of stonewalling, there is effective recourse for even
the newest E-1, if he has but a slight clue. The UCMJ provides fairly
clearly and explicitly for complaints about such matters that may be
taken over the CO's head with a minimum of fuss and paperwork. I have
personally witnessed situations where the threat of doing so got a
sailor redress of his grievance, tout suite. (It wasn't a CO
situation, though.)
And then of course there's always the nuclear weapon of the enlisted
man: the letter to one's congressman. VERY effective as a means of
ensuring written laws and regulations get complied with by officers of
every grade.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Insane practice in submarine manning
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 22:04:41 GMT
In article <MDanmIByc7E3Ew1T@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>, Paul J. Adam
<news@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >It used to be very rare to
> >see a new chief with gold stripes. Now you would be hard pressed to find
> >one with red.
>
> Significance of this? (It's obviously important, I'm just curious why)
At the end of a four-year enlistment without punishment by any formal
disciplinary proceedings (e.g., court-martial, captain's mast), enlisted
sailors are awarded a "Good Conduct" medal.
For every four years of service, enlisted sailors are allowed to add a
"hash" mark to the left sleeve of their service dress uniforms.
These hash marks are red until one has earned three (?) consecutive
Good Conduct awards, at which time one may replace them with gold.
(Aside: this is expensive!) Screw up and go to mast, and you're
reset to "red" for twelve (?) years.
I may have some of these details wrong, but that's the basic idea.
The point was that it used to be that a single captain's mast wasn't a
career-ender for an enlisted man, as any kind of disciplinary action
would be for an officer. But the Navy has changed, and now going to
captain's mast pretty much ends it all for any level of petty officer
in any rate.
Is this a good thing? In the minds of most traditionalists (including
myself) it is not. There are certain classes of conduct among young
men that correlate highly with success as a senior enlisted later in
life. This conduct is generally of a sort that results in one
explaining one's actions to the Old Man, followed by "30/30 and 1/2
for two."
Basically, the USN has instituted a sort of natural selection that
ensures that no one with any sort of character at all will make it
past the rank of E-5. The effect began to show around a decade ago,
and now it's in full swing. In another ten years, there won't be a
single "truly worthy" MCPO in the whole U.S. Navy. Or so the theory
goes. I don't believe it to its logical conclusion, but it's got
some merit.
--
From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I
_,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to
_|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under
\ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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