NORFOLK, Va. – Fireman Kameron Sauceman, a native of Rogersville, serves the U.S. Navy aboard one of the world’s largest warships, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush.
Bush was commissioned in 2009 and is completing a pre-deployment work up cycle.
“Our Sailors’ hard work to return George Herbert Walker Bush to the operational fleet in 2021 was exemplary,” said Capt. Robert Aguilar, GHWB commanding officer. “They represent the best principles of service to the mission and the nation that our namesake, President George H.W. Bush, embodied.”
Sauceman joined the Navy two years ago.
Today, Sauceman serves as a machinist’s mate.
“I joined the Navy because I wanted a change,” said Sauceman. “The Navy is also somewhat of a family tradition.”
Growing up in Rogersville, Sauceman attended Cherokee High School and graduated in 2020.
Today, Sauceman relies upon skills and values similar to those found in Rogersville to succeed in the military.
“I was in Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) in high school and learned the importance of accountability and being held to a higher standard,” said Sauceman.
These lessons have helped Sauceman while serving in the Navy.
Sauceman’s service aboard Bush follows the example of the ship’s namesake, the nation’s 41st President, George H.W. Bush. Bush is the only U.S. president to serve as a U.S. Navy aviator. During World War II he flew the TBF Avenger in Torpedo Squadron (VT) 51 and was stationed aboard USS San Jacinto (CVL 30). He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for a daring bombing run over the island of Chichi Jima.
The ship bearing Bush’s name is preparing for deployment amid ongoing strategic competition between the U.S. and its adversaries. In doing so, the ship and its Sailors continue the legacy of service to the nation that U.S. Navy aircraft carriers have provided for 100 years.
Since USS Langley’s (CV 1) commissioning 100 years ago March 20, aircraft carriers and their ability to project American power around the globe have been a consistent tool in maintaining and improving U.S. national security interest and the prosperity of the American people.
Sailors aboard USS George H.W. Bush, like Sauceman, continue to burnish the legacy of the aircraft carrier fleet and naval aviation by providing the national command authority a flexible, tailorable warfighting capability as the flagship of a carrier strike group that maintains maritime stability and security in order to ensure access, deter aggression and defend U.S., allied, and partner interests.
Serving in the Navy means Sauceman is part of a team that is taking on new importance in America’s focus on rebuilding military readiness, strengthening alliances and reforming business practices in support of the National Defense Strategy.
“The Navy is important to national security because it ensures that we have freedom of the seas and free trade for the world,” said Sauceman.
With more than 90% of all trade traveling by sea, and 95% of the world’s international phone and internet traffic carried through fiber optic cables lying on the ocean floor, Navy officials continue to emphasize that the prosperity and security of the United States is directly linked to a strong and ready Navy.
Sauceman and the sailors they serve with have many opportunities to achieve accomplishments during their military service.
“Making it through boot camp and becoming a sailor was a big accomplishment,” said Sauceman. “It was a big turning point in my life.”
As Sauceman and other sailors continue to train and perform missions, they take pride in serving their country in the United States Navy.
“Serving in the Navy has taught me how to utilize the core values of honor, courage and commitment,” added Sauceman. “Military personnel stand out and are therefore expected to perform and behave at a higher standard. I feel like that has helped shape me as a person.”
SAN DIEGO — As the Navy aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman and its strike group steams in the Mediterranean Sea — close to a bevy of Russian ships that have arrived there ahead of a potential invasion of Ukraine — the service’s top officer says the stakes of any encounter between the two navies have grown significantly.
President Biden said Friday that he believes a Russian invasion of Ukraine is now imminent, and that Moscow plans to attack the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
This sobering reality means that any misunderstanding between NATO and Russian ships in the region carry that much more consequence, Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, told reporters Friday.
“Given this current situation, the chance for miscalculation is greater,” Gilday said.
But Gilday also noted that “we operate in and around the Russians and the Chinese all the time, so this is nothing new.”
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He told reporters Wednesday that the Navy now has more than 20 ships deployed to the theater.
Training to a high standard will help ensure that ship commanding officers make the right moves and “communicate very clearly that we’re not cowboys out there.”
Asked about Biden’s comments, Gilday said Truman and the other ships in the region fall under U.S. European Command, and that Truman will remain on station “for the foreseeable future,” as far as he knew.
“We need to be forward to be relevant,” he said. “Truman’s in the right place.”
Gilday was here for a panel at WEST 2022, a Navy and defense industry conference.
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In addition to nearly 200,000 Russian troops now massed around Ukraine, Moscow has poured warships, submarines and other naval assets into the Mediterranean and Black seas in recent weeks.
“We haven’t seen a movement like this in recent history” in the Black Sea, retired Adm. James Foggo, who commanded U.S. and NATO naval forces in Europe before retiring in 2020, told POLITICO earlier this month.
Truman has in recent weeks exercised with the French carrier Charles De Gaulle, the Italian carrier Cavour and their assorted strike groups.
The Navy also last week confirmed the deployment of four guided-missile destroyers to the region, although officials say the move is not in response to the Russian buildup.
Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at [email protected].
Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG-111), left, USS America (LHA-6), and Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), transit the Philippine Sea on Jan. 22, 2022. US Navy Photo
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The U.S. Navy needs a fleet of more than 500 ships to meet its commitments to the soon-to-be released National Defense Strategy, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said on Friday.
“I’ve concluded – consistent with the analysis – that we need a naval force of over 500 ships,” Gilday said during the WEST 2022 conference, co-hosted by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute.
“We need 12 carriers. We need a strong amphibious force to include nine big-deck amphibs and another 19 or 20 [LPDs] to support them. Perhaps 30 or more smaller amphibious ships to support Maritime Littoral Regiments… to 60 destroyers and probably 50 frigates, 70 attack submarines and a dozen ballistic missile submarines to about a 100 support ships and probably looking into the future about 150 unmanned.”
According to Gilday’s list, that force would be about 513 ships with 263 manned combatants, plus 100 logistics and supply ships and 150 unmanned vessels. Gilday told reporters later that the total would include Littoral Combat Ships.
“LCS is in that mix,” he said.
The numbers Gilday said on Friday are largely in line with a notional high-end total included in the abbreviated Fiscal Year 2022 long-range shipbuilding plan. The ongoing congressionally-mandated force structure assessment will inform the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, Gilday said. But details of the FSA have largely been under wraps as the Pentagon continues to craft its next national defense strategy.
“We’re going through another force structure assessment right now, but based on the hard work we’ve done over the last five or six years we’re thinking about how we would fight,” Gilday said. “How would we fight differently in terms of a wide, vast ocean like the Pacific?”
For the last three years, the Navy’s future force structure has been in flux, undergoing several different fleet reviews while the Department of the Navy and Pentagon leadership underwent unprecedented churn in 2019 and 2020.
The attempt at a force structure assessment led to the Trump administration releasing an ambitious fleet plan toward the end of its tenure. The Biden administration shelved the plan shortly after President Joe Biden took office, prompting the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of the Defense to again reevaluate the force under new Pentagon leadership and the prospect of a flat budget outlay.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday speaking at WEST 2022 on Feb. 18, 2022.
Over the last year, the Navy has set out on an aggressive testing program to refine the emerging Distributed Maritime Operations concept that will connect crewed and unmanned ships and aircraft to operate in concert across the vast distances of the Pacific.
In particular, Large Scale Exercise 2021 tested DMO – in addition to the Marines Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment – across three combatant commands in a networked exercise with live and simulated exercises. The Navy and Marines are also testing deployed carrier strike and amphibious ready groups with complicated battle problems that further test the underlying concepts. Meanwhile, in U.S. 5th Fleet, the ongoing testing of small unmanned vessels is refining how the service thinks about employing them in the future.
“The real message I wanted to get out of those numbers, it’s actually grounded on how we’re going to fight,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Marine Corps has an ongoing amphibious ship requirements study that it will ultimately deliver to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said the study is about 30 to 45 days away from completion and he expects the analysis to call for approximately 31 amphibious ships. So far, Del Toro has received two progress updates about the study, Berger said.
“If it’s anything like the previous studies – we’ve had I think 12 studies in the last 13 years – every one of them came out about 31 amphib ships,” Berger told reporters at WEST. “So I don’t know what this one will come to, but I can’t see it radically different from that. That’s requirements. That’s our Marine Corps requirement. That’s maybe different from what the nation can afford.”
The study is assessing the requirements for both large amphibious ships and the Light Amphibious Warship, which the Marine Corps wants to shuttle Marines around islands and shorelines in the Indo-Pacific. LAW is supposed to have a beaching capability so it can easily deliver Marines to the shore. While the Marine Corps is behind the push for LAW, money to purchase the platform would come out of the Navy’s shipbuilding account.
Gilday’s affirmation of the fleet follows reports the that the Biden administration is planning late influx funds into the Pentagon budget for FY 2023. USNI News reported earlier this week that the new topline could be as high $773 billion.
By Tony Capaccio (Bloomberg) The U.S. Navy’s new version of the tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft designed for missions at sea isn’t yet “operationally suitable” because it has only “partially met reliability requirements,” according to the Pentagon’s testing office.
Among the problems: Its ice protection system “accounted for 25% of the operational mission failures, which will result in mission aborts,” the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation said in a non-public assessment marked “Controlled Unclassified Information” and obtained by Bloomberg News.
Otherwise, though, the test office found the CMV-22B Osprey is “operationally effective for carrier onboard delivery, medical evacuation, Naval Special Warfare support and search and rescue.”
The CMV-22B is a modified version of the widely used Marine Corps aircraft that lands and takes off like a helicopter and then flies like an airplane. It’s replacing the C-2A Greyhound, a nausea-inducing, claustrophobic aircraft first produced in 1965, to land cargo and people on aircraft carriers.
Spokespersons for Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing Co., which jointly produce the Osprey, referred questions to the Naval Air Systems Command.
The new aircraft “will provide the Navy with significant increases in capability and operational flexibility,” according to a fact sheet from the command.
(Feb. 22, 2021) Medical personnel carry a simulated patient during a medical transport drill on the flight deck of Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). The drill was the first-ever medevac by a Navy CMV-22B Osprey aboard an aircraft carrier. Vinson is currently underway conducting routine maritime operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Aaron T. Smith)
A command spokesperson, Megan Wasel, asked about actions the Navy was taking to address the test assessment, said the aircraft had just completed its first operational deployment this month “and successfully proved” its value “as part of the U.S. Navy’s Air Wing of the Future. In the coming months, we will be reviewing this first deployment in its entirety and will implement key lessons learned, with the goal of improving readiness, reliability, and combat capability.”
The Navy has purchased all of the planned 44 aircraft, Wasel said.
Navy operational tests evaluated the aircraft from January 2021 until mid-July 2021, and it has flown in limited fleet operations. It didn’t meet a requirement for 75% operational availability or a metric to fly longer than 12.5 hours before an “operational mission failure,” according to the test office assessment.
The aircraft’s HF radio “which is required for over-the-horizon communications to support” Navy operations far from shore “was inconsistent, demonstrating a 12% success rate for long-range, two-way communications,” according to the report.
NORFOLK, Va. – Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryan Kerns, a native of Bellwood-Antis, serves the U.S. Navy aboard one of the world’s largest warships, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77).
Bush was commissioned in 2009 and is completing a pre-deployment work up cycle.
“Our Sailors’ hard work to return George Herbert Walker Bush to the operational fleet in 2021 was exemplary,” said Capt. Robert Aguilar, GHWB commanding officer. “They represent the best principles of service to the mission and the nation that our namesake, President George H.W. Bush, embodied.”
Kerns joined the Navy four years ago. Today, Kerns serves as a machinist’s mate (nuclear).
“Both my parents were in the military,” said Kerns. “A lot of my family was in the military. They inspired me to join. I was also interested in earning money for college.”
Growing up in Bellwood-Antis, Kerns attended Bellwood-Antis High School and graduated in 2017. Today, Kerns relies upon skills and values similar to those found in Bellwood-Antis to succeed in the military.
“I come from a small town with a great sense of community,” said Kerns. “Everyone knows how to work together like a small family. It’s similar aboard this ship. We work together, eat together and when we’re not working, we hang out together.”
These lessons have helped Kerns while serving in the Navy.
Kerns’s service aboard Bush follows the example of the ship’s namesake, the nation’s 41st President, George H.W. Bush. Bush is the only U.S. president to serve as a U.S. Navy aviator. During World War II he flew the TBF Avenger in Torpedo Squadron (VT) 51 and was stationed aboard USS San Jacinto (CVL 30). He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for a daring bombing run over the island of Chichi Jima.
The ship bearing Bush’s name is preparing for deployment amid ongoing strategic competition between the U.S. and its adversaries. In doing so, the ship and its Sailors continue the legacy of service to the nation that U.S. Navy aircraft carriers have provided for 100 years.
Since USS Langley’s (CV 1) commissioning 100 years ago this March 20, aircraft carriers and their ability to project American power around the globe have been a consistent tool in maintaining and improving U.S. national security interest and the prosperity of the American people.
Sailors aboard USS George H.W. Bush, like Kerns, continue to burnish the legacy of the aircraft carrier fleet and naval aviation by providing the national command authority a flexible, tailorable warfighting capability as the flagship of a carrier strike group that maintains maritime stability and security in order to ensure access, deter aggression and defend U.S., allied, and partner interests.
Serving in the Navy means Kerns is part of a team that is taking on new importance in America’s focus on rebuilding military readiness, strengthening alliances and reforming business practices in support of the National Defense Strategy.
“The Navy can be anywhere we want,” said Kerns. “Having this presence around the world with the capabilities we have serves as a strong deterrence.”
With more than 90 percent of all trade traveling by sea, and 95 percent of the world’s international phone and internet traffic carried through fiber optic cables lying on the ocean floor, Navy officials continue to emphasize that the prosperity and security of the United States is directly linked to a strong and ready Navy.
Kerns and the sailors they serve with have many opportunities to achieve accomplishments during their military service.
“I’m proud of the supervisor qualifications I earned a few months ago,” said Kerns. “I coordinate orders between the watch officer and the watch standers. This covers two of the four propulsion units aboard the ship in addition to other parts in the reactor spaces.”
As Kerns and other sailors continue to train and perform missions, they take pride in serving their country in the United States Navy.
“Being able to serve our country helps ensure that we don’t lose what we have,” added Kerns. “If something were to happen, the Navy is the first service to respond because we’re already deployed around the world.”
Not enough time, not enough equipment, and not enough people. That is what the crews of over a dozen ships told investigators from the Government Accountability Office in a report on actions needed to improve Navy ship maintenance delivered earlier this month.
In addition to looking at maintenance data from the Navy, investigators also spoke to 107 members of the junior and senior enlisted crews of 16 ships from around the fleet. They included submarines, aircraft carriers, guided-missile cruisers and destroyers and dock landing ships. Their comments were corroborated by “having independent analysts compile notes from the meetings.”
Sailors’ comments painted a picture of a fleet that is overworked and understaffed. It’s also been noticeably covered in rust lately. And the problem boils down to four areas of concern, according to the report: crew shortages, high operational tempo, limited maintenance training and shortages of parts and material. Many sailors also discussed difficulties in performing maintenance duties, and the generally low priority it was given.
For the sailors, the difficulties started with manpower. On one surface ship, the crew reported that six of the 13 positions in the ship’s electronics division were unfilled. On another ship, the electronics division had been reduced from 28 to 11 personnel, with only eight crewmembers left who were fully qualified to perform maintenance tasks. One ship reported that its maintenance division was only at 40 percent of its optimal crewing level.
“A submarine may borrow 10 to 12 personnel from other ships for deployment,” read one comment. “Afterward, a huge vacuum occurs when qualified maintenance personnel leave to support a deploying submarine.”
FILE PHOTO: Sailors assigned to the Virginia-class attack submarine Pre-Commissioning Unit (PCU) Illinois (SSN 786) salute after bringing the ship to life during a rehearsal for the submarine’s upcoming commissioning ceremony scheduled for Oct 29. Illinois is the U.S. Navy’s 13th Virginia-Class attack submarine and the fourth U.S. Navy ship named for the state of Illinois. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Darryl I. Wood/Released)
The situation was the same onshore.
“Over the last several years the Navy has consistently filled positions open to enlisted personnel at shore-based maintenance providers 20 percent or more below authorized levels,” read the report.
Personnel on 10 of the 16 ships also reported that the demands placed on them by crew shortages also exacerbated morale and mental health issues. One ship’s crew members reported that “they lost one person to suicide and a dozen other personnel experienced mental health issues over a period of 7 months.”
Due to the high operational tempo of the fleet, ship’s crews described, “operating in unsafe conditions, with safety measures circumvented or disregarded, and working 12 to 20 hours while in port, canceling leave, and also working long shifts in order to get maintenance done while underway.”
An investigation into the 2017 collision of the guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald with a container vessel off the coast of Japan found that crew fatigue driven by the ship’s high operational tempo played a role in the accident, which resulted in the death of seven sailors. Likewise, the same was true of an investigation into the collision of the USS John S. McCain with an oil tanker near Singapore, which happened just weeks after the Fitzgerald incident. Ten sailors were killed in the accident.
Meanwhile, junior personnel reported in the recent GAO report they received little training while still “gaining senior status and not knowing what they are doing.”
Submarine crews reported that so-called departures from specifications — changes in approved maintenance procedures — were also increasing in frequency. According to Navy data, from 2015 to 2020, they increased from nine to 15% of all maintenance jobs in the submarine fleet.
Sailors also reported workforce shortages resulting in days that “regularly exceeded 16 hours,” and that “the hours of required maintenance exceed the hours in a day.”
One ship’s crew reported 80 hour work weeks while in port, which increased to up to 100 hours a week in preparation for deployment.
Senior Chief Ship’s Serviceman Chrislin Voltaire cuts Lieutenant Tyler Zamudio’s hair in the barbershop aboard amphibious transport dock ship USS Somerset (LPD 25) Nov. 13, 2018, in the Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Lasheba James)
When it comes to maintenance training, sailors described it as oftentimes obsolete or not matching up with the skills actually needed aboard a ship. “Ships’ crews do not learn how to maintain equipment they are expected to repair,” read one comment.
“Ships’ crews often learn incorrect or incomplete group knowledge that negatively affects their abilities to complete work,” read another.
The report identified a general trend in the Navy dating back more than 20 years – shortening formal instructor-led and hands-on training and becoming increasingly reliant on on-the-job training, even as crew sizes have been reduced.
Sailors also cited the lack of availability of formal training. Some sailors also said that the training given by the Navy was out of sync with what they actually encountered aboard a ship, focusing on systems and technology that are no longer in use. The result was sailors arriving on a ship with little practical knowledge.
A few crews even described having to “rely on social media to help solve maintenance problems.”
Parts and material shortages were also identified as problems across the fleet: Back-orders of up to two years. Obsolete parts that have to be cannibalized from other ships. Using so-called “‘duct-tape’ and ‘bubblegum’ approaches” to get ships underway.
“Crewmembers are told simply to make it work,” read one comment. “This leads to swapping parts and improvising.” The Fitzgerald investigation found that the Voyage Management System, which helps with navigation without paper charts, in the skipper’s cabin “was broken so sailors cannibalized it for parts to help keep the rickety system working.”
The USS Fitzgerald being towed into port.
Fourteen of 18 shore-based maintenance providers also reported similar issues with parts and material shortages.
Some of the crews interviewed by investigators also spoke about the additional challenges of performing maintenance, from missing technical manuals to not factoring in the time it takes to perform additional duties associated with maintenance.
For a ship that is understaffed or a crewmember who lacks experience, what might be a three-hour task on paper can take twice as long.
The crews also described the common practice of using workarounds and “Band-Aids” to complete tasks.
“Essentially, a commanding officer does not want the ship to be perceived by superiors as the ‘boat that cannot get underway,’” read one comment from a submarine crew.
On another ship, “high-pressure air compressors have been broken for a long time. When a piston cracked in one of the compressors, management’s response to this problem for 3 years was to instruct the ship’s crew to use it sparingly.”
Despite the hours spent on it and the lack of parts and equipment, the low priority of maintenance was also noted.
“Maintenance is usually not a priority for a ship’s leadership until leadership wonders why maintenance is incomplete,” read one comment.
“Crewmembers often work on Saturdays and Sundays to accomplish maintenance because it was pushed to the side given the extra duties they must complete,” read another.
Long days, last-second workarounds, sifting through a parts list that contains 1,500 excess and obsolete items and being told, simply, to “get it done” are things that are certainly familiar to any service member. But this report describes a fleet with sailors seemingly stretched to their limits.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told Task & Purpose he hadn’t seen the GAO report but said “we’re not ignoring maintenance.”
“We’ve come from 7,700 delay days to just shy of 3,000 [in private shipyards], and my goal is to get to zero,” Gilday said. “A lot of that is predicated on putting money against the problem instead of deferring the maintenance and walking away from it. So, some of those problems those GAO reports are looking [at] a year or two years back. I’m giving you data here and now. I’m putting money against the problem. I will tell you that maintenance is funded to executable levels, as are with respect to training steaming days and flying hours.”
Jeff Schogol contributed reporting from San Diego.
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