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Deployments extended…
With the service undermanned, short on ships, and backlogs on required maintenance you wonder just how long this can go on.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has extended the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group’s deployment in the Eastern Mediterranean, a defense official told USNI News, dashing family members’ hopes of bringing the strike group back to Norfolk for the holidays. This is now the third time the secretary of defense has extended the strike group, currently in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of the U.S.’s ongoing response to the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7. USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and the other ships of the carrier strike group initially deployed in May to replace the George H.W. Bush CSG in the Mediterranean as part of the U.S. response to the Russo-Ukraine War. The Associated Press first reported the extension. The last extension was in November, USNI News previously reported. The carrier strike group has been deployed 227 days, or approximately seven and a half months. Extended deployments have become characteristic of the strike groups sent to the Mediterranean since December 2021, ahead of Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine. The George H.W. Bush CSG spent eight months on deployment, while the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group spent nine months on deployment. The Navy’s initial goal was to send the strike group home for the holiday and reassemble the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group to support the ongoing naval presence mission, defense officials told USNI News. The Bataan ARG deployed in July for the Middle East, as t part of the U.S. response to Iranian and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy actions against commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The Bataan ARG is in the Red Sea, according to USNI News’ latest Fleet Tracker. The Bataan ARG, led by flagship USS Bataan (LHD-5), includes USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) and USS Mesa Verde (LPD-19). Both Bataan and Carter Hall have been operating together, while Mesa Verde has been sailing in the Mediterranean. The reaggregation of the Bataan ARG would also provide support for a Lebabanon non-combative evacuation operation if needed, the defense officials told USNI News |
Originally Posted by Excargodog
(Post 3737939)
With the service undermanned, short on ships, and backlogs on required maintenance you wonder just how long this can go on.
https://news.usni.org/2023/12/15/sec...ment-into-2024 They can go nine months, come back for 4-6 weeks to redo the flight deck and go out for another nine months before there are any real issues (other than morale). |
Originally Posted by Otterbox
(Post 3737943)
They were easily doing 9 month deployments during the GWOT. The limiting factor is usually the condition of the flight deck. They eventually have to redo it unless they want jets sliding over the side while taxing around.
They can go nine months, come back for 4-6 weeks to redo the flight deck and go out for another nine months before there are any real issues (other than morale). |
Originally Posted by tnkrdrvr
(Post 3739212)
Yeah, I think more than a few CSGs did 13 month deployments at the height of OIF/OEF. If you have to be stuck out, there are worse places than ports in the eastern Mediterranean.
Port maybe 3 days every 4-6 weeks. Half the time it was beer on the pier or "no beer, here's the pier" Basically the more likely the Carrier CO was to make Admiral the less fun your port calls were. Beer on the pier basically means you can get off the boat, in to what we call the "sandbox" in Jebel Ali (Dubai) where there's some vendors, shops and fast food but never more than a couple hundred yards from the boat. https://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/02/87/36/30_big.jpg see that square area with buildings in the middle next to the carrier? For a 5 month span that was the only dry land I touched. We had a port call in Oman in that window but I was confined to the ship because I was passed over for promotion and those who were passed over MUST be liberty risks since they were substandard officers according to the CO. Probably the only reason I didn't go longer without a port visit was because I got medevac'd off the boat when they changed a med I was on because of unavailability at "reasonable cost" and we had only brought 7 months of the medication and my body started rejecting pretty much all my implants and I was so sick they thought I had a hyper aggressive cancer. Fun times. |
Originally Posted by CX500T
(Post 3739265)
I did a couple of those 11-13 monthers.
Port maybe 3 days every 4-6 weeks. Half the time it was beer on the pier or "no beer, here's the pier" Basically the more likely the Carrier CO was to make Admiral the less fun your port calls were. Beer on the pier basically means you can get off the boat, in to what we call the "sandbox" in Jebel Ali (Dubai) where there's some vendors, shops and fast food but never more than a couple hundred yards from the boat. https://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/02/87/36/30_big.jpg see that square area with buildings in the middle next to the carrier? For a 5 month span that was the only dry land I touched. We had a port call in Oman in that window but I was confined to the ship because I was passed over for promotion and those who were passed over MUST be liberty risks since they were substandard officers according to the CO. Probably the only reason I didn't go longer without a port visit was because I got medevac'd off the boat when they changed a med I was on because of unavailability at "reasonable cost" and we had only brought 7 months of the medication and my body started rejecting pretty much all my implants and I was so sick they thought I had a hyper aggressive cancer. Fun times. But for the Navy it isn't just the manpower and morale issues. It's also accumulated engineering issues. The shipyards aren't keeping up and most ships are leaving the yard with unresolved deficiencies and more accrue while deployed. And when they do finally hit the shipyard they take a lot longer - backlogging maintenance on the rest of the carrier fleet. It's sort of a domino effect, one carrier's excessive maintenance needs extending the time for the next one to get to the yard which means it's time in the yard will need to be even greater - screwing up the next in line... https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/december/let-carriers-do-what-they-do- best https://news.usni.org/2020/11/12/no-margin-left-overworked-carrier-force-struggles-to-maintain-deployments-after-decades-of-overuse https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-588 https://www.rand.org/content/dam/ran...RAND_MG706.pdf One can only pretend that doesn't affect training time and operational capability for just so long. Eventually even the junior enlisted see through it. |
Originally Posted by Excargodog
(Post 3739546)
I celebrated my last promotion announcement by buying the wing O'Doul's - at least for those who wanted it. It was all we were allowed. Fortunately I was able to do a real celebration in the week we got back stateside before PCSing to my next assignment. And clearly, the Navy has it a lot harder than the Air Force.
But for the Navy it isn't just the manpower and morale issues. It's also accumulated engineering issues. The shipyards aren't keeping up and most ships are leaving the yard with unresolved deficiencies and more accrue while deployed. And when they do finally hit the shipyard they take a lot longer - backlogging maintenance on the rest of the carrier fleet. It's sort of a domino effect, one carrier's excessive maintenance needs extending the time for the next one to get to the yard which means it's time in the yard will need to be even greater - screwing up the next in line... https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/december/let-carriers-do-what-they-do- best https://news.usni.org/2020/11/12/no-margin-left-overworked-carrier-force-struggles-to-maintain-deployments-after-decades-of-overuse https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-588 https://www.rand.org/content/dam/ran...RAND_MG706.pdf One can only pretend that doesn't affect training time and operational capability for just so long. Eventually even the junior enlisted see through it. All eggs in one basket. F it. not my circus not my monkeys anymore. |
Originally Posted by CX500T
(Post 3739566)
What doesn't help is the Navy is putting all the Mid Life RCOH capabilities in one shipyard, which is also the only one that builds CVNs.
All eggs in one basket. F it. not my circus not my monkeys anymore. Not my circus or monkeys anymore either unless they do a pretty in depth recall to active duty. |
Originally Posted by Excargodog
(Post 3739967)
Not my circus or monkeys anymore either unless they do a pretty in depth recall to active duty. https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/...,w_1480,c_fill View of North Field, Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, March 31, 1945, when it was the busiest airport in the world. PhotoQuest/Archive Photos/Getty Images CNN — The US Air Force plans to bring the Pacific island airfield that launched the atomic bombings of Japan back into commission as it tries to broaden its basing options in the event of any hostilities with China, the service’s top officer in the Pacific says. Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces, told Nikkei Asia in an interview published this week that North Airfield on the island of Tinian will become an “extensive” facility once work has been completed to reclaim it from the jungle that has grown over the base since the last US Army Air Force units abandoned it in 1946. “If you pay attention in the next few months, you will see significant progress, especially at Tinian North,” Wilsbach said. The Air Force is also adding facilities at Tinian International Airport in the center of the island. Pacific Air Forces confirmed Wilsbach’s comments to CNN but said there was no official release on the subject. |
Originally Posted by Excargodog
(Post 3739967)
Not my circus or monkeys anymore either unless they do a pretty in depth recall to active duty. |
Originally Posted by C-17 Driver
(Post 3740362)
Don’t worry. By the time you finished all the mandatory diversity and inclusion, LGBT acceptance, sexual harassment, use of personal pronouns, gender awareness, and how to put on a quality all ranks club drag show training the war would be over.
Barely 2 minutes in, he's on the DEI train talking about his lesbian, teenage daughter. I walked out. Combat effectiveness has been and is continuing to erode rapidly. |
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