Navy fires TR skipper

THParent said:
Guam has got to be close to capsizing by now.
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I thought it already did…

www.duffelblog.com

Guam finally capsizes

THE PACIFIC OCEAN—After years of warnings from Congress, the island of Guam has finally capsized, according to several Department of Defense officials familiar with the matter. Satellite imagery confirmed that the island disappeared into the Pacific Ocean early Thursday morning. There were no...
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I don’t know why many of you continue with this ridiculous “Guam could capsize” canard. Though it came out of the mouth of a duly elected official, it’s just not likely. All the Navy has to do to avoid said capsize is to carefully unload the crew in a balanced way, putting half of them on one side of the island and the other half on the other side. Voila, capsize averted! Another option, if they need to unload the entire crew in one spot, is to do so on one of the long ends. As everyone knows, it’s harder for an island to capsize along that axis. This isn’t that hard, folks. Sheesh! 🙄
 
Any USMMA midshipman or grad could calculate how to balance the load in all directions, taking into account all weight and balance factors, island stability and buoyancy, righting moment, loading sequence, etc.

A bit of silliness helps offset my worries about the crew, other Navy ships, and sorrow for the TR sailor who succumbed.
 
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Capt MJ said:
Any USMMA midshipman or grad could calculate how to balance the load in all directions, taking into account all weight and balance factors, island stability and buoyancy, righting moment, loading sequence, etc.
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In my day, that was learned by all USNA mids during Youngster Year in "Naval Engineering I"
 
OldRetSWO said:
In my day, that was learned by all USNA mids during Youngster Year in "Naval Engineering I"
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The reference to capsizing ...
I had a mental picture of being on a pier at 0400 watching the onload of a couple hundred Army rolling stock onto a massive MSC RORO for use in a joint exercise. My staff ops guys (1 KP former deck, 1 Maine Maritime former deck) and the Reserve strategic sealift officers (KP and other maritimes) I had gotten in for the exercise had worked up the cargo load plan using the data for the number and type vehicles supplied by the Army, created a nice tidy load plan in concert with the ship’s officers (Master a KP grad, plus an assortment of other maritimes). The Army showed up with their newly updated “Eddie Bauer fully loaded” version, with significantly increased weight per vehicle plus more cube per vehicle. Army didn’t realize the aggregate result made a huge difference. The Army O-4 and I had a Candid Discussion. Scrapped old load plan, pencils, calculators and deck plans came out, worked it on top of a truck hood, checked and re-checked the numbers, re-ordered the vehicles on the pier, got them rolling onboard and the ship underway in good time to head to the port where the exercise was. That’s exactly why you have those exercises. After a long sweaty day and night with plenty of salty language, my next leadership move was slapping down my credit card at the bar in Lockwood Hall at the Sub Base in PH.

That’s what made me think of USMMA folks being able to load Guam up safely and in a seaworthy fashion.
 
Capt MJ said:
The reference to capsizing ...
I had a mental picture of being on a pier at 0400 watching the onload of a couple hundred Army rolling stock onto a massive MSC RORO for use in a joint exercise. My staff ops guys (1 KP former deck, 1 Maine Maritime former deck) and the Reserve strategic sealift officers (KP and other maritimes) I had gotten in for the exercise had worked up the cargo load plan using the data for the number and type vehicles supplied by the Army, created a nice tidy load plan in concert with the ship’s officers (Master a KP grad, plus an assortment of other maritimes). The Army showed up with their newly updated “Eddie Bauer fully loaded” version, with significantly increased weight per vehicle plus more cube per vehicle. Army didn’t realize the aggregate result made a huge difference. The Army O-4 and I had a Candid Discussion. Scrapped old load plan, pencils, calculators and deck plans came out, worked it on top of a truck hood, checked and re-checked the numbers, re-ordered the vehicles on the pier, got them rolling onboard and the ship underway in good time to head to the port where the exercise was. That’s exactly why you have those exercises. After a long sweaty day and night with plenty of salty language, my next leadership move was slapping down my credit card at the bar in Lockwood Hall at the Sub Base in PH.

That’s what made me think of USMMA folks being able to load Guam up safely and in a seaworthy fashion.
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Got it, that is quite different from what we did at USNA in Naval Eng I which was more about the actual mechanisms affecting ship stability from the actual structure and then how battle damage would affect things with "free surface" effect and "free communication". We had model ships floating in benchtop tanks and in lab periods, we would work with various weights to test out the theories that we were learning. Lots of important lessons which would then provide understanding of issues like you faced with the cargo ship.
 
Interesting.
Business Insider article said:
"But the email, to which the captain's four-page letter was attached, appears to have been sent to only 10 people in total, The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the email, reported Thursday. It was sent to Crozier's immediate boss, Rear Adm. Stuart Baker; the US Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. John Aquilino; and Vice Adm. DeWolfe Miller, who oversees all Pacific naval air forces. Crozier, according to The Post, then copied the message to only seven other people, all of whom were fellow US Navy captains."
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So the "seven other people" were all O-6s (at least according to this article). If that is true, that's pretty big news. Sadly, I don't even know if news articles are true anymore when they come out. We usually have to wait and see.
 
THParent said:
Interesting.

So the "seven other people" were all O-6s (at least according to this article). If that is true, that's pretty big news. Sadly, I don't even know if news articles are true anymore when they come out. We usually have to wait and see.
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Washington Post is the originator if this update to the story and included the letter in their article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...8de7-9fdff6d5d83e_story.html#comments-wrapper

I wasn't able to read the Business Insider article so I apologize if it's a rehash.

I'm curious to hear if anyone's opinions are altered based on the new information. The amount of people the article discusses is significantly less than the 20-30 number that was originally quoted. That being said, it was not addressed to the 7th Fleet Commander (who oversees the TR).

I'm still on fence, but if this WaPo article is accurate, the email is far less incendiary than I imagined it to be. CAPT Crozier also took the time to shoulder some of the blame as well, which I found to be much more admirable than just pointing fingers towards the top of the chain.
 
All this factual info should have been developed early on, and thoughtful and appropriate action, if required, then taken, after thorough investigation. The immediate relief for cause started multiple pots boiling and took attention away from the core issue: sick sailors and the impact on a major operational asset.
 
IMHO.. this shows that it was a political decision and not a military decision to move so swiftly and with incomplete information (or they didn't care about the information).
 
billyb said:
IMHO.. this shows that it was a political decision and not a military decision to move so swiftly and with incomplete information (or they didn't care about the information).
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Looks that way, but realize that "politics" is played by many military leaders too. Generally, if you make the boss or their organization look bad (or they think you did), they will punish you...rightly or not.
 
information is emerging that CAPT Crozier had previously sent a series of emails, via the appropriate channels that didn't result in any action. his immediate boss, CSG down the pway on TR, was slow rolling him and resisting action. the issues that were raised were buried in staff work that was taking way to long to become actionable.

this is coming from people close to the situation, but of course it remains to be seen what the real story is. should be very interesting what the result of the investigation is, and how much of it becomes public.

as for reinstating CAPT Crozier, even if all of the leadership decides that he should not have been relieved, it would still be a bad precedent (in my view) to be seen to be bending to demands from the media, online petitions, etc in changing course.
 
A6E Dad said:
information is emerging that CAPT Crozier had previously sent a series of emails, via the appropriate channels that didn't result in any action. his immediate boss, CSG down the pway on TR, was slow rolling him and resisting action. the issues that were raised were buried in staff work that was taking way to long to become actionable.

this is coming from people close to the situation, but of course it remains to be seen what the real story is. should be very interesting what the result of the investigation is, and how much of it becomes public.

as for reinstating CAPT Crozier, even if all of the leadership decides that he should not have been relieved, it would still be a bad precedent (in my view) to be seen to be bending to demands from the media, online petitions, etc in changing course.
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At the same time, it appears to some that the Captain got too impatient about the slow pace of moving the crew off the ship but that move required getting thousands of hotel rooms out the the community so first of all, the civilian government had to agree to have thousands of potentially infected people moved out into their community. I'm sure that required detailed plans which had to not only exist on paper but actually have names and resources assigned. This is off the top of my head
1. Actually get the rooms in hotels that may have been closed for the virus or, if not, sectioned off areas in hotels that still had non-Navy guests
2. Arrange food deliveries - the sailors still need to eat regularly and they can't go to a common area without risking infecting others so room to room food delivery
3. Arrange distributed/visiting medical care. The sailors evacuated need to be assessed once or even a couple of times per day
4. Arrange transportation for sailors to the hotels and then for 2 and 3.
5. Arrange security of some sort - you don't want Johnny Sailor who feels fine breaking curfew to get beers or go looking for companionship
6. Arrange PPE for the people involved in #'s 2-6. For that matter, they need to find/arrange for people to DO #'s 2-6
7. Misc logistics: Toothpaste/hygene items/etc. . . is there a way for people quarantined to get these things?

All this takes time and I'm pretty confident that this could not have been done before the Capt pushed the send key. If I were in his shoes, I'd be impatient to but I'd be surprised if all of that could be accomplished for even a subset of the crew in the time before things blew up.
 
all good points, and i don't disagree

i guess it depends on whether all that stuff was being actively worked with the highest urgency, or was senior staff was busy preparing power point presos and actual decisions were not being made
 
All this discussion is very interesting, but unfortunately the damage—all kinds—has been done.

How many posters have even read Modley’s credentials? It’s embarrassing...and not for the first time.
 
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