Our Navy's Stupid Mistakes

My wokeness, you have got to be kidding. Nope, you hear often about the military focused on CRT and now have personnel focused on DEI rather than the important mission to be combat ready, as you just posted. That comes from political pressure.

Yes. How dare the Pentagon train soldiers and sailors not to be sexist or racist. That would never happen back in my day. Woke...blah...blah.....

I called it your wokeness because wokeness means different things depending on whether you lean way to the left or way to the right. Right-leaners tend to use woke/wokeness as an insult as well as a dog whistle for other right-leaners. The term "woke" goes back to the 1930's, but it's only in the last decade or so that it's become popular in politics.

Unlike you, I have only rarely heard of DEI (never CRT) being associated with the Navy. I don't think the Navy's attention to it is causing a major disruption to its mission capabilities any more than Navy chaplains do. Chaplains and DEI personnel serve a useful purpose--just ask one of the rape victims at the military academies.

If you have sources that state or even hint that DEI personnel have caused a reduction in any way of combat readiness, I would sure like to be directed to them.

Its intent has nothing to do with combat, so it won't make the Navy a better combat force. I guess it could make us less offensive to any prisoners we take.

Actually, I just learned about DEI. I looked it up for meaning and it is to add seats at the table, just another quota system. These efforts are not there to put the qualified personnel in a particular job.
Kevin, thanks for that video. Someone hit the reset button!

END OF AN ERA


The end of an era Saturday, at Fincantieri Marinette Marine.

The final littoral combat ship built at the shipyard was launched and christened.

It was the last planned side-launch of a ship at the marine.

The future USS Cleveland (LCS 31), a Freedom-variant littoral combat ship, is the 16th and final Freedom-variant LCS.

Robyn Modly, wife of former Acting Secretary of the Navy and Cleveland native, Thomas Modly, christened the ship.

“A side launch, like you saw behind you, is the way that human beings have been launching ships literally for millennia, it was the first way a large vessel could be launched… but for the building of a modern warship that leaves quite a bit to be desired,” says Fincantieri CEO, Mark Vandroff.

Fincantieri is now working on a new launch for the frigates, which are the next generation of ships following the littoral combat ships.

“We are very pleased that the Navy chose us to build the frigate I think those are great ships, the one they chose for us is based on a frigate designed for various European Navy’s,” says Vandroff.

And in doing so, they are working on constructing a new launch.

“The shiplift that you can see behind me is under construction, we are making great progress on it, I expect to have it done and certified before the end of 2023,” says Vandroff.

The first frigate is expected to be launched and christened in 2025, and completely finished in 2026.

Although it is in the water, the future USS Cleveland is not quite finished.

“As the ship is launched, production completion is about 85% so we’ve got more work to do and we have to go to test and trials,” says Program Director at Lockheed Martin, Chris Minster.

Vandroff says it was truly all hands on deck to get the future USS Cleveland in the water.

“It was a million hours of effort…I’ve got roughly 1,400 if you count both blue collar and white collar employees who come here everyday,” says Vandroff.

And Marinette Marine needs even more employees for the frigate.

It has already added 200 employees, and is looking for another 200.

You're not specific about who you are blaming, but it sounds like you are blaming the Navy -- again. Here's what I wrote back on May 13, 2022:

Any defense contractor of any size engages in lobbying efforts. The bigger they are the more lobbying and influential they become. This is but one part of a broken system. Add to this our Congressional Reps that are more interested in bringing jobs and $$ to their districts than in providing what our Military really needs and wants. Then we have a Dept or Defense that changes leadership and strategic direction every time the White House and/or Congress flips . And let’s not forget our Generals and Admirals that are often more concerned with getting to their pensions and Board seats and won’t do anything that might upset the apple cart.

In addition to a broken system we have ever-changing and evolving potential enemies and threats. Look at how things are different today just from what’s happening in Ukraine. There was a heavy cruiser nearly sunk by a shoulder fired missile from shore. Now we have sea drones causing major damage to ships not to mention the land based attacks from drones. And many countries have developed hypersonic missiles capable of reaching nearly anywhere within minutes. This is just the stuff we know about!

Uy Vey! Lord help us if we ever see a a full blown conflict with any enemy of means and substance.

Most of the government and military types that are hired by Lockheed Martin and other contractors are hired for what they know and not who they know.