The USS Devastator, a Navy minesweeper, is pulled into position as it arrives in Bahrain in 2012. (Jayme Pastoric/U.S. Navy)
ProPublica: Iran Has Hundreds of Naval Mines. U.S. Navy Minesweepers Find Old Dishwashers and Car Parts.
As tensions heat up in the Persian Gulf, the Navy’s minesweeping fleet may once again be called into action, but its sailors say the ships are too old and broken to do the job. “We are essentially the ships that the Navy forgot.”
The U.S. Navy officer was eager to talk.
He’d seen his ship, one of the Navy’s fleet of 11 minesweepers, sidelined by repairs and maintenance for more than 20 months. Once the ship, based in Japan, returned to action, its crew was only able to conduct its most essential training — how to identify and defuse underwater mines — for fewer than 10 days the entire next year. During those training missions, the officer said, the crew found it hard to trust the ship’s faulty navigation system: It ran on Windows 2000.
The officer, hoping that by speaking out he could provoke needed change, wound up delaying the scheduled interview. He apologized. His ship had broken down again.
“We are essentially the ships that the Navy forgot,” he said of the minesweepers.
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Update: The Forgotten Navy: U.S. minesweeper fleet in disrepair as Iran drops more explosives in Strait of Hormuz (War Is Boring)
WNU Editor: Unbelievable.
It's ALWAYS in disrepair!
ReplyDeleteMaintenance is far too lucrative, and from a government agency with government contracts negotiated behind closed doors. I mean there is sooo much money to be made and the work im sure takes 1/10 of the time they charge!
ReplyDeleteDo you know government acquisition processes?
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ReplyDeleteWell sure, anon 3:48. I've been working on my '67 VW since 1971 when I bought it. Plenty of grease on my palms thus I do know of government acquisition processes and techniques to get those contracts.
The Navy is a poster child of neglect. Whether it was Bush II's War on Terror, or Obama's war on the DOD, lack of money, oversight, threat assessments and possible corruption at the highest levels of the Navy, the sailors have suffered and the ships have been run onto reefs. Just look at the rust on our ships! Its a scandal.
ReplyDeleteThat's 16 years of fools leading the nation before Trump came in and goosed the budgets and now the degradation is for all to see.
http://www.navy.gov.au/fleet/ships-boats-craft/mhc
ReplyDeleteYou can ask us to do it