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The Navy is gradually overcoming a "sick” condition in many of its 1200-PSI destroyer-type engineering plants, but the prognosis as viewed from the deckplates of those ships is not one of a rapid recovery.
It’s no secret the "1200-pounders” have been giving the Navy headaches for some time. Boiler explosions in the USS Dewey (DLG-14) while moored in Toulon, France, and in the USS Goldsborough (DDG-20) while underway in the South China Sea caused deaths on both ships and were widely reported in the press.
These are but two of the accidents since 1965 that have cost a total of $6.5 million to repair, detracted from Fleet readiness, and caused additional loss of life.
On still another ship, a DLG, a fire resulting from a fuel oil line rupture killed four men in 1969- A boiler explosion on the same ship three years later injured only one, but the ship was lost to the Fleet for four months.
A glance at a single statistic reveals the gravity of the situation, aside from the obvious facts concerning loss of lives and precious repair dollars: Two thirds of the Navy’s 200 active escort ships and seven of the 13 CVAs are powered by the 1200-PSI (lbs/in2) steam generating plants.
Engineering problems exist on other ships. But the 1200-pounders, with their automatic controls, higher steam generation rates and correspondingly higher temperatures and pressures, account for a high percentage of engineering CasReps these days.
The readiness of a 1200-PSI engineering plant is measured not only by its CasRep file.
A Norfolk newspaper recently carried an article summarizing the results of initial examinations of 1200-PSI ships by the CinCLantFlt Propulsion Examining Board (PEB). Applying concepts borrowed from the Navy’s nuclear material program while examining the ships’ maintenance of Navy material and training standards, the PEB found 21 of 25 ships unsatisfactory.
Lowest of the ships in general were the DDGs. For many officers and men above the level of the engineer
ing spaces, this came as a surprise. After all, rosters of former COs of many of the DDGs include names of many who are now flag officers, and the class has long been considered to be a high point of destroyer development.
But, within the last year, a PacFlt DDG spent eight months cold iron while $1.8 million was pumped into her engineering plant to return it to Navy standards. On the east coast, two other DDGs spent another eight months total in similar "get well” programs, although this did not involve a similar fiscal expenditure.
Findings of the Fleet Commanders’ PEBs—one aspect of a multi-pronged attack on the condition of the 1200-PSI engineering plants—reveal signs of advanced deterioration of the plants, even on newer ships, and a gross lack of understanding by many engineers of the overall operation of those plants.
The Senior Member of the CinCLantFlt PEB contends: "We’ve raised a whole generation of petty officers with low standards. Many have no idea what goes on beyond the limits of the bulkheads of their space. Put this together with a previous lack of appreciation of engineering on the part of many officers, and we’ve arrived at a situation in which many ships are simply falling apart.”
Action of the Fleet commanders is matched by concern of the Type commanders. They have directed ships to establish maintenance as a top priority, especially during this period when operating funds are scarce. Mobile Training Teams (MTTs) function for the Type commanders as preliminary PEBs and perform the additional function as training specialists for the ships.
The examining boards and training teams are but
Fatal accidents, fires, and "Cold Iron”—the sailor’s slang for engineering spaces whose machinery is neither in use nor tended—all can cripple a Fleet. And too many of these cripplers have been traced to the 1200-PSI plants that power half our attack carriers and two-thirds of our escort ships.
two aspects of a wide-ranging program to improve the reliability and readiness of the 1200-PSI propulsion plants. The 1200-PSI Steam Propulsion Plant Improvement Program was established in October 1971 at the direction of the CNO.
Significantly, the office of the Chief of Naval Operations became concerned with the deteriorated material condition of these plants as early as October 1964. But various "get well” programs were submerged by higher priority programs. Now the situation is changed, and this Improvement Program has been designated a CNO Executive Board Special Interest Program.
Overall coordination of the 1200-PSI Improvement Program is provided by the OpNav Program Coordinator, OP-04P. NavShips Project Group PMS 301 carries out the program on a day-to-day basis. Typical projects underway at any one time at PMS 301 include training review, correction of engineering spare parts and supply problems, and evaluation of labor-saving devices and procedures as a means of contributing to engineering reliability.
The historical basis for the growth of the 1200-PSI Improvement Program comes as a result of technical problems concerning the Navy’s decision to use smaller and lighter steam generating plants which nevertheless produced higher pressures and temperatures. The overall goal was to accommodate larger electronics and weapons suites on board ship without greatly increasing ship size.
Because of the relatively smaller water volumes involved and plant complexity, auxiliaries formerly located in enginerooms were relocated to firerooms; BT manning, however, remained about the same as in 600-PSI plants.
At the same time, the requirement for identical numbers of MMs continued as a means of maintaining the various support systems for the more complex weapons and electronic suites—dry air, increased air conditioning, and other cooling systems associated with the weapons packages.
Even the electrician rating was affected in 1200-PSI plants as motor driven pumps began to take the place of turbine driven auxiliaries in those situations where reliability was not sacrificed.
In fact, numbers and quality of personnel in 1200-PSI plants has become a limiting factor in plant reliability.
One Program Coordinator reviewed the situation: "Qualified people . . . there aren’t enough of them. These plants are more demanding and less forgiving, but it’s only been relatively recently that the Navy began to train men specifically as 1200-PSI engineers. To some degree these ships are still being manned by 600-PSI engineers, although that’s changing.”
If personnel shortages are detrimental to weapons
system’s readiness, shortages are devastating to engineering reliability. Yet the more complex 1200-PSI plants are manned with numbers similar to those of a World War II destroyer. Senior engineers, with experience in both types of plants, point out that not only have their plants become more complicated, but their men have changed also.
And, although the condition of the 1200-PSI engineering plant improves, the situation is still serious enough to warrant an appreciative understanding. Considering the ship as a weapons system, the requirement for accurate projectile delivery realistically changes as the situation shifts from hot war to detente. However, the requirement for a ship to get underway and to perform reliably never does.
One of the best ways to consider the condition of the 1200-PSI plants comes from the views of commanding officers, engineer officers, and men on the deck- plates of the 1200-PSI ships. They are the men who deal daily with the problems of personnel shortages, motivation, training, and the quality and extent of off-ship support.
Looking at the issues as these men see them helps explain why the 1200-PSI problems will take some time to correct. Such a review is certain to be worthwhile for many naval officers.
Personnel Shortages. In the numbers area, debits on personnel ledgers become grim realities aboard ship. In the firerooms and enginerooms of the 1200-PSI ships, readiness does not respond solely to an influx of non- rated personnel, even when this occurs. The higher pressure steam generation plants show the effects of both a lack of E-4s and E-5s facing the Navy today and a scarcity of petty officers in all pay grades who are completely familiar with the demanding 1200-PSI plants.
Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee one year ago on the subject of military procurement, Secretary of the Navy John W. Warner pointed out that manning has dropped below 90% in certain critical ratings and petty officer skill areas. He added: "We have found 96% manning to be the threshold below which we begin to encounter serious operational, maintenance, personnel management and training difficulties.”
In April 1973, total Fleet strength stood at 94.7% of authorized strength for MMs and 84.4% for BTs. Neither figure had changed by more than 1.2% in the previous year; the situation has not changed much since then.
Transfusions of more strikers and non-rated men into the engineering departments has not alleviated the situation completely. While the manning levels as of May 1973 for BTFNs and MMFNs climbed to 115% and
The 1200-Pounders: Prognosis Guarded 63
120%, respectively, similar statistics for E-5s in those categories did not approach even one-half of those percehtages.
Because of personnel shortages in their engineering departments, many destroyer COs must consider the engineers’ morale as much a limiting factor as a balky main feed pump or a CasRep boiler. While this has not changed over the years, the popular, Navy PAO magazine image of an engineer as an overworked, hot and sweaty but, nevertheless, cheerfully willing sailor has changed.
Recently a DLG skipper surveyed a coming examination by a PEB, impending deployment, and the requirements placed upon his ship since the conclusion of a regular overhaul: "The engineers have been working harder in fewer sections than any other group since the end of overhaul. Now preparations for the PEB mean they have to work harder—and I think they know the PEB is good for them in the long run—but their UA rate is already so high the work load is increased- further. Sometimes I’m not so sure they are coming back.”
Precedent exists for his concern. Engineers on a San Diego DDG with an excellent reputation in all departments walked off the job two years ago, and it took a personal appeal by the CO to bring them back aboard.
A DDG chief engineer sums up the situation this way: "We’re finally getting enough firemen, but their expertise doesn’t make up for that of a third or second class PO. Those are the guys who show the younger fellows how to repack valves correctly and overhaul reducers—and then make sure it gets done. We really need the POs also.”
If the situation concerning adequate numbers and expertise is sometimes grim in the propulsion ratings on a 1200-PSI plant, it can be equally serious for some of the other rates.
A DLG chief engineer reports: "Two of my five EMs converted from another rate. I’ve got them going to school to learn English well enough to raise their GCT so they can get in "A” School and won’t be permanent E-4s. But right now they are a long way from being effective. We rate nine EMs and seven ICs on a ship like this, and it seems about the only way we can exist is through crisis management.”
Numerous commanding officers, executive officers, and engineer officers report a similar situation with the EM and IC ratings. The problem reaches beyond the engineering plant with its increased emphasis on electrical auxiliaries and IC monitoring systems—a major problem in the Fleet today is reliable and adequate 400 Hz power. Providing it requires better expertise and maintenance.
Few of the comments from the engineers themselves
are philosophical. Standing port and starboard or one- in-three followed by more of the same scenery leaves little opportunity for philosophy. One young engineer says, "The hardest thing is knowing we’ve got to fix the gear that goes down when we get in port while other people are off on liberty. After awhile that gets to you.”
A key to the situation seems to be the feeling of many engineers that their workload is inequitable, regardless of whether it may or may not be. Shipboard managers realize the threat to engineering readiness the liberal, and prevailing, six-section liberty policy poses, but they also sense the mood of their engineers. As a result, crisis management and maintenance continues, and desirable items are deferred until they, too, can no longer be ignored.
Today’s Navy suffers from a rash of unauthorized absenteeism. A BTC explains what that means to him: "If I had the 15 people in a fireroom like the Bureau says I should, one or two UAs could be absorbed. But when we’re down to 11 or 12 like we are now and someone goes over the hill, it makes it that much tougher on everyone else . . . and some other young fellow is going to get the same idea.”
Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee one year ago, the Chief of Naval Operations linked the issues of manpower and maintenance: "The poorer the maintenance, the shorter the ultimate lifetime of the ship. And I don’t think there is any question but what your ships have suffered badly during the seven or eight years of intensive operations in the Southeast Asia war when the turnaround times were much too brief and the operating times were much greater than in a normal peacetime situation.
Admiral Zumwalt concluded, "And I don’t think there is any question but what they have had the situation exacerbated by the gross undermanning that we have suffered, particularly for the last year, as a result of our tight MPN situation.”
Motivation. Within the last decade Americans have witnessed alarming trends among their fellow workers: high absenteeism, even in the ranks of middle management; alcoholism or drug abuse on the job; and corporate and industrial sabotage. Psychologists point to occupational boredom as a major issue and probe for other reasons.
The Navy is attacking the issue with a number of programs and concepts. But motivation remains a problem, especially in the engineering departments of the older 1200-PSI ships.
The severity of the problem is highlighted by the personnel shortage—fewer men must accomplish more to maintain a baseline readiness condition.
A DLG exec with an average number of engineering department personnel problems outlines some aspects of the problem:
"Admirals and Navy PAO types talk about the Soviet threat and keeping the sea lanes open, and it means next to nothing to the kid on the deck- plates. He wants to know whether he’ll get some outside help cleaning watersides and why a radarman always seems to get more liberty than he does.
"Another thing that doesn’t help is the quality control on some of the youngsters we’re getting. Put one of them in a fireroom when he’s probably psychologically unsuited to be a fireman in the first place, and you can get a real divisive effect on work center morale.
"Most adjust, but some don’t. The one or two who don’t almost require a petty officer to do nothing other than supervise them individually.”
Of course, these problems have existed in the Navy for some time. However, attitudes and personnel problems respond to solutions at a slower rate than strictly material problems, which can often be solved by diverting funds to the critical area. With fewer ships, engineering readiness becomes correspondingly more important—and motivation is a significant aspect of engineering readiness.
One aspect of the lack of motivation apparent in many engineering departments concerns the lack of systems knowledge on the part of many senior petty officers.
Here, the Fleet Commanders’ PEBs contend, the higher temperatures, pressures, and generation rates, and the smaller water volumes, demand an approach other than "casualty control by the numbers.” Engineers require a more extensive knowledge of the total plant to prevent casualties, or to minimize them, if prevention is impossible.
At this point, numerous senior engineering petty officers must reopen technical and course manuals, familiarize themselves with the contents, and impart the knowledge to their men.
The teaching is often the most difficult task of all. In many cases, today’s senior petty officers express unhappiness with what they feel are their juniors’ casual
At the outset, the Boilerman striker, left, needs to know all he can find out about, for example, the proper burner barrel assembly. But, as his awareness increases, he's liable to be asking other questions—such as how come a radarman always seems to get more liberty than he does.
attitude toward the work ethic, adherence to outside peer pressures, and concern over the workload of other ratings instead of strict attention to the task at hand.
Younger engineers counter that they do not in fact mind the long hours, but that they do resent many older petty officers’ failure to consider individuality. Stereotypes crop up with distressing frequency.
Here, again, the problem is not new. But it does exist in many engineering departments, which traditionally have been the most closely-knit groups aboard ship. Many veteran engineers claim the lack of appreciation has never been worse.
A 931-class DD main propulsion assistant offered this view:
"It’s almost as if the only communication that occurs happens when someone says something the other fellow doesn’t mind hearing. If he doesn’t like what he hears, you get tuned out—at least temporarily.
"We seem to have the greatest success when we point out the basics—like too high a lube oil temperature means that sooner or later a piece of gear will fail—and the man who didn’t report it in the first place will probably lose liberty time helping repair the equipment.”
The 1200-Pounders: Prognosis Guarded 65
Training. The state of engineering training has maintained an unenviable position in the Navy for much of the last decade—greatly deplored, often ignored. Personnel shortages and the impact of the Vietnam War placed great emphasis upon maintenance. Training became a luxury few ships could afford.
Introduction of the Engineering Operational Sequencing System (EOSS) into the 1200-PSI plants provides the engineers with a systematic procedure for lighting off and securing their plants. Over the long term, failure to properly light off and secure causes the greatest damage to the plant. With the completion of the EOSS in March 1974, the 1200-PSI engineers will have standardized procedures which are also excellent training aids.
Like many other new programs, however, EOSS meets some inertia from officers and petty officers used to doing things "the old way.” A similar situation exists with the Personal Qualification Standards (PQS) program.
Meanwhile, engineering casualty control training— the planned variety—continues to take a back seat to other shipboard training requirements.
A DDG commanding officer explains why: "Nobody gets very much ISE time anymore. I know it’s been a long time since the engineers had a chance to work out with their plants. But if they do have an actual I casualty during drills the day before a missile shoot, for instance, then I can lose $4,000 in electronics parts as well as the manhours the missile techs spent peaking the systems.
"Why don’t we do the engineering drills after the missile shoot? The SOA required to get back to port 1 doesn’t allow it.”
A If the captain feels uneasy about the state of his engineers’ training, many of the engineers more than share his sentiments. He spends most of his underway 7 time on the bridge. They spend theirs on the deck- r plates.
* A former submariner who now commands a DE
•comments: "In submarines, engineering is king. On I surface missile ships engineering isn’t, and it’s as simple
as that. I had no idea how serious the situation was until I served a tour as exec on a ship that hadn’t done any casualty control for eight months—many of the younger engineers were frankly afraid of the plant and doubted if their watch sections really could control casualties.”
There are few destroyer COs who have not visualized suffering a boiler casualty in restricted waters or alongside another ship, followed by an inexperienced throt- tleman dragging the remaining boiler off the line while answering a bell. Yet, resistance to conducting engineering casualty control persists.
While not as valuable as at-sea periods, numerous excellent training opportunities exist for many ratings in port. For example, CIC teams receive basic and advanced A AW and multi-threat training in the mock-ups at Dam Neck and Point Loma; the same teams sharpen their coordinated ASW tactics with their own ship’s sonar attack team in the 14-A-2 trainers in every major Navy port. Missile training units on both coasts employ sophisticated mobile trainers that can introduce even jamming displays into weapons direction radars. Gun crews of 1200-PSI ships in the Norfolk area can even fire basic exercises, with the exception of shore bombardment, on mounts trained seaward at Dam Neck.
No similar "trainers” are available to the engineers. The automatic combustion control (ACC) trainers simply do not provide the coordinated training needed by engineers to become proficient.
Fast cruises provide some benefit, but engineers require confidence in controlling casualties that do not occur alongside the pier.
Off-Ship Support. It is a paradox that many 1200-PSI engineering plants are floundering, even though operating time has been reduced. Ideally, engineers should light off one plant weekly during in port periods. But often a supply problem, tender or yard job, or maintenance action aboard ship prevents this.
Supply specialists at PMS 301 function as a tiger team, and the supply situation is gradually improving.
Tenders suffer from the manpower shortage also. The Fleet Maintenance Assistance Groups (FMAGs) are only now beginning to make an impact. The net effect is that outside help from these sources has tended to fill only immediate needs for most chief engineers. Breathing spells are often short before another problem arises.
In the case of work done by a Navy or civilian shipyard, here again, the dollar buys less than previously. A frustrating but not uncommon experience for ships is to conclude a restricted availability or overhaul with insufficient lagging accomplished and replacement of steam seals still ineffective in dissipating heat.
Statements from a BTj and an FN to a Navy medical officer researching heat stress problems in some of the older 1200-PSI firerooms—where upper level temperatures can soar to 140°F and the humidity can increase from steam leaks—underline the unhappiness in this situation:
From a BT3:
"I can still recall some moments when it was so hot I almost passed out during the WestPac cruise. I don’t feel as if this space has enough supply or exhaust vents. Much better ventilation should be used if the Navy expects personnel to stay in this rate. This extreme heat also affects the safety of other personnel.
The heat makes anyone sleepy and when you are tired, you don’t react quick enough to perform your job properly.”
From an FN:
"I came on board in February and when I started down the ladder to # 1 Fireroom, it was like walking into a brick wall. It was hard to keep clean even with two showers a day. I couldn’t accomplish much work because of the heat, and I feel I could be doing much more beneficial work elsewhere. I was nicknamed 'The Mole’ because I kept my head in an air vent on watch after making my rounds as messenger.”
Another development in off-ship support promises further impact upon the 1200-PSI engineering plants as well as the Navy itself: the energy crisis.
66 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1974
The net effect of the so-called energy crisis, coupled with the yearly battles to be fought over naval appropriations, is that fuel economy will probably dictate the tempo of operations for some time to come. At
the same time, further reductions in engineering training underway and possible restrictions on the use of fuel for in port steaming will contribute to a further reduction in engineering reliability.
In these days of a relatively liberal liberty policy in port, the need to operate on a routine basis exists even in the face of an energy crisis.
Three years ago, at the conclusion of a major EastPac Fleet exercise, the task group commander sent a congratulatory message to participants. The thrust of the message was that, instead of suffering a reduction in material readiness as a result of a rigorous 12-day exercise, the ships had in fact reduced the total number of CasReps outstanding at the beginning of the exercise.
The commander drew no conclusions, but two are possible. The first is that readiness posture at the beginning of the exercise was much lower than it should have been. The second is that sailors on board those ships at sea apparently were more productive than they had been during the previous in port period with its widespread six-section liberty policy put into effect months before.
A shortage of fuel that prevents ships from putting to sea on a routine basis causes still more problems, especially in this period when unit identity and integrity is sometimes difficult to maintain.
Every chief engineer learns sometime during his tour that such factors as lack of personnel and expertise, motivation, training, and the quality of outside support can combine to produce unfortunate results.
On one occasion the DLG on which I served as engineer officer returned to San Diego after a week of ISE and went cold iron to accomplish some necessary repairs. We were scheduled to get underway in six days for 12 days of operations in the Hawaiian Op Areas, with an elapsed time away from homeport of about 22 days. The schedule had been published for all hands two months before.
Since the operating schedule had been fairly heavy- after a three-month RAV that saw six different contractors working aboard the ship, and officers and chiefs detailed to monitor progress of the contractors’ prog- ressmen—I talked to key people in the department, decided to delay light-off until the morning we sailed, and confirmed this plan with the CO. Repairs to the plant were completed in three days.
The day before getting underway I began to feel uneasy while taking my morning tour of the main spaces. The apprehension grew. Finally I confided my feelings to the MPA and CPOs. They did some checking of their own but found nothing amiss. By this time I felt extremely worried, and I told the MPA and BTCM
The 1200-Pounders: Prognosis Guarded 67
to prepare to light off immediately. A watch was posted in each space.
About 45 minutes later, the BTCM—an outstanding leader in all respects—approached, his face a combination of rage and resignation. The words dropped out: "Somebody salted up my after feedwater system. Those tanks were OK yesterday morning.”
The salinity monitoring system indicated the contamination was confined to the tanks. After two complete flushes the salt was still generating. Finally the system was cleared completely. The ship sailed on time the next morning.
As a result of that incident I don’t necessarily believe in ESP. But I do realize there are some off-ship peer pressures at least as strong as loyalty to one’s own shipmates for some Navy men today.
That became strikingly evident two months later when the ship that supplied boiler feedwater to purge our feed system—like mine, another DLG with the Engineering E—suffered deliberate damage to a main shaft bearing. So instead of spending the month before deployment in homeport, many crew members from that ship spent much of that month in a shipyard 90 miles away.
While I served as chief engineer, one other incident occurred which seemed to be a combination of some of the factors mentioned previously. As the ship departed Subic Bay after a six-day availability en route to the Gulf of Tonkin and another 35-day line period, fuel oil began spurting from a storage tank vent. Upon investigation it was discovered that during the installation of a spot air conditioner, the tender work crew had welded part of the heat exchange system into what they believed to be a saltwater line. The connection was actually made into the fuel tank vent itself—the displacement of fuel by water leading to the spill was only a minor harrassment. Instead of that, a serious explosion could have resulted.
Contributing to the problem was the ever-present people shortage: Too many jobs in progress for adequate supervision because of an insufficient number of supervisory manhours, on the part of both the ship and the AD.
The end of the Vietnam War has not signalled a sudden upsurge in the safety of the 1200-PSI ships. During a one month period within the last quarter, ComCruDesLant Mobile Training Team visits to ships uncovered the following conditions: inoperative boiler alarms in numerous firerooms, nuts on studs securing safety valves to a steam drum so loose they could be turned by hand, and one ship that had been unable to operate its feedwater control system in the automatic mode for more than nine months.
All of those problems can be corrected by personnel aboard ship.
Conclusion. The prognosis for the 1200-PSI engineering plants however guarded, is for a slow recovery. Managers and personnel on the deckplates agree that a condition which developed over a period of years cannot be corrected in a matter of months or even a year.
There are, however, some encouraging developments. Specifically, PMS 301 has spurred action on the following projects, which all contribute to plant reliability:
► Completion this spring of a 1200-PSI hot plant at Great Lakes, which will be used to train BT and MM "A” School students. (Another hot plant may be authorized for Destroyer School students; to this date, no 1200-PSI engineer has ever been trained on a prototype.)
► Standardization of engineering plant overhauls, an area that has required attention for some time.
► Compilation of automatic controls inventories. Through this and other supply-related actions, problems with repair parts are being reduced.
Another concept proposed by PMS 301 is making a great impact. Examination by the Fleet Commanders’ PEBs forces engineers to maintain their plants in a safe condition and to review their training status continually.
But the personnel situation, as always, is slow to respond.
Before the Senate Armed Forces Committee last spring, Navy manpower experts stated that a 23% first term reenlistment rate is required to maintain the personnel situation at a point where it does not detract from Fleet readiness.
The BT first term reenlistment rates for March and April 1973 were 24% and 20.1% respectively. Theprevious monthly high for the past four years was 16.5%, occurring in June 1971. The overall rate for BT first term reenlistments in 1972 was 10.9%.
A desire to increase the input of each BT "A” school class to 76 students was announced in January 1972. But the average number of students has approached only two-thirds of that total most of the time.
Even the recent decision by the Chief of Naval Personnel to increase the utilization of "A” schools through the use of returnable quotas may meet with a problem, since the Type commanders control funds for the use of those quotas.
According to the 1200-PSI Improvement Program Coordinator, BTFN Fleet manning level is at least at that point which will support the long term "get well” program for the 1200-PSI firerooms.
While the administrative improvement programs proceed with varying degrees of speeds, the greatest potential for restoring or enhancing engineering reliability exists on board the 1200-PSI ships themselves.
When officers fully appreciate the importance of engineering, when the engineers appreciate their importance and strive for plant safety, and when everyone decides to take the steps necessary, that potential will be realized.
It works like this, as it did on board a Norfolk DDG with a formerly unenviable engineering reputation:
The captain, who had never been an engineer, put on coveralls and hit the deckplates. Officers and CPOs set plant safety as their top priority. Working hours increased, but absenteeism dropped as supervisors led by example. Petty officers attacked the work on a systematic basis, rather than becoming depressed by the magnitude. Training received greater attention. A dormant pride reasserted itself.
The afternoon the PEB departed—passing the ship on its first try—an FN in the after fireroom explained what the program meant to him: "I’ve got two years left in the Navy, and to be honest, I still wish it was only two weeks. But a year ago they had to order us to come down here. Now we come down on our own, and we know our plant is safe.”
Then he added, with a note of pride, "And I’ll tell you another thing—we can steam this ship any place in the world.”
Five months previously, in the same fireroom, another FN had surveyed the task at hand, decided the work was not for him, and elected to absent himself. He received a ride to the airport from a BT3 in the same space.
While officers and engineers on this ship, a DDG, turned the situation around, the process took four months. During this time that DDG was not an operational unit.
Successful as shipboard engineers were in this case —and that success is being repeated on more and more ships—the Navy simply cannot afford four month "get well” periods for many ships of any type without important employments being affected. As the operating forces grow smaller, engineering (and total) readiness for each ship becomes correspondingly more important.
At this point, an overview of the 1200-PSI engineering plant invites both reflection and speculation.
Surveying the situation, it appears that one reason for the conversion to gas turbine propulsion in the Spruance-dzss destroyers was an unspoken disenchantment by the Navy with the 1200-PSI system. Yet,
the system is reliable. Many civilian steam generating plants use much higher temperatures and pressures with relatively fewer problems.
On the other hand, the Navy never satisfactorily solved the "people problems” associated with the system. The personnel shortages and net effect of 1200-PSI engineers trained with 600-PSI methods contributed to the problem.
Only in the last three years has the training of 1200-PSI engineers come under serious review. And the personnel shortages effects are still such that the difference between a new 1078-class DE with its commissioning gang of engineers and the same ship two years later can be quite noticeable.
Actually, the Navy’s engineers have performed admirably for many years. They operate and maintain their own gear; they often solve problems of a scope that would cause cancellation of a CIC exercise or gun shoot in another department. But their accomplishments—and now their problems—still go unnoticed by many in a Navy enamored of complex and expensive weapons systems.
A former engineer officer, now a squadron commander whose ships include 931-class DDs and 1078-class DEs, comments on another aspect: "Most engineering rates work in relatively decent surroundings. But many BTs work in spaces poorly designed and built, badly lighted, and generally poorly instrumented and automated.
"It’s almost as if the boilermakers and shipbuilders put themselves out of business with the Navy by their careless design and construction. We’re going to gas turbines because we’re fed up with steam problems.
"We can learn a lot from our new DE plants—which are mostly clean, light, roomy firerooms with stations arranged so a man can maintain and control his plant.”
And at this point, one can only hope that the problems of the 1200-PSI ships—inadequate numbers of supervisors, sometimes poor design, and a slow start in training—do not impact in similar ways upon naval propulsion plants in the future. If this happens, the result will be exactly the same. It has been a painful lesson which does not need to be relearned.
Lieutenant Commander Felger enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1956 and graduated from the University of Kansas in 1961 through the N.R.O.T.C. program with a B.S. in Journalism. He served as CIC Officer on board the McDermut (DD-677) until 1963, then served as Executive Officer/ Navigator of the Embattle (MSO-434) from 1964-67. After release from active duty he worked as a reporter for the Cleveland Press and was a member of Naval Reserve Surface Division 4-91, Cleveland. Upon voluntary recall in 1970 he attended Destroyer School and then served as Engineer Officer, USS Fox (DLG-33) until 1972. He presently is Officer-in-Charge, ComCruDesLant 1200-PSI Mobile Training Team, Norfolk.