WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Armed Services Committee Vice Chair and 20-year Navy veteran Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) pressed Navy leadership yesterday on the number of ships currently deployed around the world, which is far less than previously reported by the service, and the predicted fleet-wide drop in missile capability and capacity in the “Davidson Window.”
Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday, and Commandant of the Marine Corps General David H. Berger testified at the full committee hearing on the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2023 defense budget.
From the sounds of things, the congresswoman ought to be hectoring the Navy to teach its personnel how to actually handle the boats they are entrusted with by the American people:
The Washington Examiner
“Submarine crash in South China Sea was ‘preventable,’ Navy investigation finds”
Abigail Adcox
23 May 2022
A U.S. Navy investigation tasked with looking into the events that led to a nuclear submarine crashing into an “uncharted seamount” in the South China Sea last fall found the mishap was “preventable.”
The Oct. 2 underwater crash of the USS Connecticut that put the submarine out of commission for months happened because of navigation planning and risk management mistakes, among other errors, according to a final investigative report by Rear Adm. Christopher Cavanaugh.
“This mishap was preventable.”
“It resulted from an accumulation of errors and omissions in navigation planning, watch team execution, and risk management that fell far below U.S. Navy standards,” an executive summary of the investigation’s findings reads.
“Prudent decision-making and adherence to required procedures in any of these three areas could have prevented the grounding.”
Leaders aboard the submarine during the underwater crash were relieved of their duties in November.
The Connecticut is expected to be out of operation for an “extended period of time” due to the damage sustained in the incident, the report states.
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So no wonder we have fewer boats at sea out there, when we have incompetent Navy personnel wrecking them on us by driving them into things, like other boats far larger than them that they, with all their high-tech navigation gear, are apparently unable to see.