The words “training” and “education” are probably as misused as any other pair of words in the English language. To be sure, the dictionary definitions of these words indicate that they are synonymous within certain limits. But in reading the supplementary definitions under “education,” one will find a severe limitation on the connotation of the word “training”—training suggesting the exercise of practice to gain skill, endurance, or facility.
It is my firm conviction that we are educating our technical ratings to a level which is far too high at the commencement of what we hope will be their naval career. We are failing rather miserably to train them for the jobs they face in the field. This educational level in many cases approaches, if not exceeds, the level of college courses, but specializes certainly in the more specific naval applications. At the same time, the practical training needed to develop maintenance skills, the pure mechanics of troubleshooting our modern naval equipment is being sadly neglected.
It is my belief that unless vigorous corrective action is taken, the Navy in the immediate future will be unable to train or educate sufficient personnel to man, maintain, and operate our Fleet and aircraft.
How did we get into such a situation? To answer this question, one must examine the over-all problem of the ever-increasing technical complexity of modern naval equipment as well as the methods of properly training or educating our naval personnel to maintain and operate this equipment. Some of the contributing factors to the over-all problem have long been recognized by almost everyone in the naval service. Other factors which are equally critical have been overlooked, because they did not bear a trademark identifying them directly with a training and educational area.
Sheer complexity, lack of current and adequate documentation, shortage of trained personnel complicated by rapid turn-over, inadequacies of design and materiel failures have all been damned by most of the naval service as being major contributing factors to the problems of equipment maintenance and operation.
The increasing complexity of our modern naval shipboard and aeronautical equipment has posed a fantastic problem to our present training establishment. This is true in part because the “technological state of the art” has outstripped our in-house capability to analyze and determine the precise skills and knowledges required to maintain and operate the new equipment.
The lack of a well-defined maintenance policy for much of our non-aeronautical naval equipment, in general, has not been recognized as a major contributing factor to deficiencies in the training and education of our technical ratings. A definitive maintenance policy, establishing various levels of maintenance and having documentation written for these levels, is an absolute necessity if the tasks, skills and knowledges required of the various levels of technical ratings are to be determined. Without this vital guidance, our training commands can determine neither training criteria nor goals.
Faced with this inability to determine training goals, our present training and educational system can react only by broadening the trainee’s educational base, hoping that this increase will enable the trainee to cope with any situation he might encounter in his chaotic maintenance field. This would not be a serious problem if the people the Navy has educated would remain in the service. But they do not. To counteract the continuing tremendous loss of highly educated young men at the end of their first enlistments, we have educated still more people to even higher educational levels. This, in turn, requires painful extraction of additional highly competent personnel from an already undermanned fleet to serve as instructors.
We are in a vicious cycle, condemned by lack of training goals to expand our educational bases and squeezed by industry and the other services for available manpower and talent. Hard, vigorous, and drastic action is necessary if this cycle is to be slowed and possibly reversed.
The fundamental requirement in any training or educational situation is to determine the goals which are to be achieved. These goals obviously cannot be established without precise knowledge of what the trainee will be required to accomplish in his normal occupation. This may sound somewhat trite, yet it is here that the breakdown in our training and educational program has occurred.
The lack of definitive maintenance policies for some of our newer naval equipment is critical to the entire maintenance program, including the training of the maintenance personnel. For, as noted earlier, training goals cannot be determined without this vital frame of reference.
Let us examine a hypothetical maintenance situation involving a shipboard guided missile. We might find the following ideal arrangement. In the missile test spaces there are two independent test areas each capable of handling and testing one missile. Repair parts for the missiles in the form of “modules” or “wheels” which are major sub-assemblies, such as the fuze, receiver, radar transmitter, and electrical power unit, are available as ready issue items in the missile test area. Defective modules or “wheels” are not repairable on board, but must be returned to a designated overhaul activity. Refill of ready- for-issue spares are obtained from the supply system on a one-for-one exchange basis.
A total of seven men man each test area. Each crew is headed by a first class or chief missile technician who supervises the activities of two missile check-out test teams. Each team is headed by a second class missile test technician. The other team members are seamen or third class missile mechanics. Training background for the crew is as follows:
Each team member is a graduate of the new missile school’s short course on missile checkout. Each team leader is a graduate of the new missile check-out course and of the new missile test equipment, maintenance, and operation course. The test area supervisor is a graduate of both of these courses, and is a graduate of a high-level course covering missile theory, test equipment theory, and detailed missile-test equipment system maintenance.
Now, what happens when a missile is brought up for test on Station Number One? The missile is placed in the test position, and the test equipment cabling is connected by the two test team members—under the supervision of the team leader. When all is in readiness, the automatic test equipment is cycled through a complete missile test, and the test results are compared with those expected for a “go” missile. A “no-go” indication at any point in the test requires validation by the team leader, or, if he finds an unusual condition requiring further and possibly higher level checking, he calls the test area supervisor. Once a “no-go” has been determined valid, the team leader supervises replacement of the indicated module or “wheel,” directs a retest of the missile, and accepts the missile when a valid “go” response has been indicated.
This test procedure sounds routine, but let us look at the skills and knowledge required at each level of operation or supervision.
At the test station, the two team members need to know:
•How to handle the missile properly in readying it for test.
•How to connect the test equipment to the missile.
•How to activate the automatic test cycle.
•How to determine that the test equipment indicates “go” or “no-go.”
•And how to replace a defective module or “wheel” as designated by the test equipment.
The team leader needs to know all of the above, plus:
•How to determine whether a “go” or “no-go” indication by the test equipment is valid.
•How to test and locally calibrate the test equipment.
•How to perform limited corrective maintenance on the missile test equipment, including casualty analysis at a limited level for the missile-test equipment system.
The shop supervisor needs all of the foregoing plus the technical experience and education required to troubleshoot the entire missile-test equipment system.
Now, let us examine the situation aboard a surface ship about to check out a surface to air missile. If the ship has her full allowance of personnel in the proper rating structure, one might find the same type of teams as in our hypothetical case—with one glaring difference. All of the men, whether team members, checkout supervisors or shop supervisor, have completed the same basic courses. There is no differentiation of level of responsibility nor of level of knowledge required to accomplish the job at hand. The seaman or third class petty officer has been given the same basic education as the chief and, except for experience, all are qualified, on the basis of schooling, to act in any capacity within the checkout area.
Psychologically, this presents a bad situation. The highly educated junior members of the team must perform tasks far below their level of knowledge and, with no challenge, rapidly become bored. Every man in the team has an Intelligence Quotient well above the average, yet personnel with lower IQs easily could be trained to act as team members and team leaders. Seven men have been educated under the present system where only one man requires the full training and educational program in the hypothetical situation. In order to attain the ideal arrangement for our hypothetical situation, we need no major upheaval of our present courses for guided missile technicians at the supervisory level. We do need to program this instruction during the supervisor’s career so that it is received in the proper increments at the proper times. We also need to create and provide the training courses required to train the team members (missile mechanics rather than technicians) and the team leaders.
Our present missile technicians courses for Terrier/Tartar missiles start with six months of Class “A” school, which is 90 per cent electronic theory, followed by six weeks’ instruction covering both of the weapons and the warheads. No instruction on specialized missile-test equipment is provided until such time as the parent command requests such training. This supplementary training requires an additional 17 weeks if all courses are requested. A total of 49 weeks of education and training are involved or, with allowance for leave and travel, at least one full year—without even considering recruit training and “boot” leave. Training the team members in accordance with our hypothetical situation should not take one quarter as long, while training the team leaders should not take one half as long as the present course for missile technicians. Furthermore, training previously received could be eliminated from the final education and training of the shop supervisor. A maximum of three man-years of training and education would be required as compared to the present seven years of training and education provided a seven-man team. In addition, the sequential training for the supervisor would provide him with current, “up-to-the-state-of-the-art” education. As it stands now, the most junior members of the maintenance team probably have the most up-to-date educations.
Can such reduction in training and educational time actually be accomplished without sacrifice in the standards of maintenance and readiness? An unqualified, “Yes,” can be answered to this question. The techniques are available for the asking, and they can be observed in application at the Army Ordnance Guided Missile School, Huntsville, Alabama.
As an illustration of the reduction in training time which can be achieved, the following example is cited:
At the Ordnance School, Aberdeen, Maryland, a training course for fire control radar technicians had been established which consisted of a total of 30 weeks’ instruction, the first 18 of which were in basic electronics at the Army Signal Corps School, Fort Monmouth. The final 12 weeks at Aberdeen were devoted to M-33 Gun Fire Control Radar advanced training. This course was designed to produce graduates capable of third and fourth echelon maintenance. This maintenance level corresponds to typical naval shipboard and electronic repair shop maintenance of non-modular electronic equipment where individual components (i.e., capacitators, resistors, etc.) are removed and replaced, and alignment and calibration are performed.
Using revised techniques and with students having no previous basic electronics courses —the students actually were recently arrived troops, fresh from basic recruit training, but whose average I.Q. equaled that of a normal class—a special 12 weeks’ course was conducted. At the end of this course, the graduates were tested against a group of graduates who had just completed the established traditional course. The maintenance ability of both groups was equal. Training geared to the job had been substituted for a great portion of education, with the end result of a 60 per cent reduction in training time and no sacrifice in graduate maintenance competence. With this example in mind, let us look at the stated objectives of the present, six-month, U. S. Naval Guided Missile School, Missile Technician Class “A” Course:
The general purpose of the Missile Technician Class “A” Course is to provide training in basic technical knowledges and skills required of lower pay grade missile technicians. At the completion of this training, trainees will:
A. Know the following:
(1) Fundamental laws, definitions, and units involved in electronic circuits.
(2) Fundamental types and properties of cells and batteries.
(3) Principles of motor and generator operation.
(4) Purpose and use of common hand tools.
(5) Characteristics of vacuum tubes and their application in electronic circuits.
(6) Fundamentals of operation of power supplies, filters, amplifiers, oscillators, tuned circuits, and similar common applications of electronics principles.
(7) Fundamentals of transistors and magnetic amplifiers and their applications in electronics.
(8) Principles of operation of common test equipment such as multi-meters, vacuum tube voltmeters, simple oscilloscopes, signal generators, tube testers, and meggers.
(9) Basic techniques of logical trouble shooting of electronic circuitry.
(10) Basic special circuits and their utilization.
(11) Fundamentals of guided missile flight, propulsion, control, and guidance.
B. And be able to do the following:
(1) Simplify electrical/electronic circuits and solve for unknown quantities by application of Ohm’s and Kirchoff’s laws by use of mathematical means extending to the use of trigonometry; calculate values of components, voltage, current, power, and so forth.
(2) Connect batteries in various arrangements to obtain desired potential and current.
(3) Perform minor maintenance on motors and generators.
(4) Under supervision, use simple common hand tools to repair equipment.
(5) Construct fundamental electronic circuits using a schematic diagram; check the circuits for proper characteristics; signal trace individual circuits.
(6) Under supervision, use simple test equipment to measure electrical/electronic quantities.
(7) Under close supervision, trouble-shoot simple electronic circuits; correct casualties of minor nature such as tube replacement and tightening connections; make routine adjustments.
An examination of these objectives shows little correlation with the skills and knowledges required of the missile mechanic, described on page 70.
What is the purpose of this massive education in the early stages of a career? Whatever the purpose, the end result is that only a few of our trainees remain in the service beyond the first enlistment, and we are in fact educating most of these people for civilian life, often as a contractor representative in the missile field. Many statistics have been published as to the cost to the government for each of these trainees. The cost of educating these people must be weighed against our available resources of money and manpower. The actual cost of training each guided missile technician, fire control technician, and electronic technician, is, in itself, a very considerable sum. On the average, four to five men are educated for these critical ratings during the first enlistment for each man who re-enlists. We cannot afford this tremendous drain on our available resources. Education of our technical ratings must be programmed so that payment of service time is received in return for education.
It is therefore proposed that the following general plan to improve our training and educational programs be adopted:
•Establish maintenance policies for all naval equipments. The naval aviation maintenance policy and the Army ordnance maintenance echelon structure are offered as possible guidelines.
•Stop massive education of first enlistment technical personnel.
•Train first enlistment personnel to maintain and operate our complex equipments in accordance with the established maintenance policy.
•Upon re-enlistment, at completion of the first enlistment, or extension thereof, offer and provide an educational step upward.
•Continue the education as the man progresses in seniority so that, by the time he has reached first class or chief, he has been given the total education now provided our seamen, and has received additional education as his progress and other requirements have dictated.
In summary, it is proposed that first enlistment personnel be trained as mechanics, and that these needed mechanics, by progressive educational steps, be trained first as equipment technicians and then as system technicians, as their seniority and responsibility increase.
Implementation of such a program is almost inevitable in light of the ever-increasing trend toward miniaturization, replaceable modular construction, and the even more startling throw-away micro-electronic construction where maintenance in the sense of repair cannot be accomplished. As described in an article in Naval Aviation News, November 1962, micro-electronics will require virtually no maintenance and will require only replacement of sub-assemblies which will themselves indicate that they are defective.
Modular construction is certainly not a very recent innovation, yet our training or educational courses have not reflected the fact that modular replacement type maintenance does not require an electronics education in order to be carried out adequately.
A perfect example of such lag in course content and adherence to tradition can be found in a specialized U. S. Navy course on one of our newer ASW torpedoes. Eight weeks of training are involved, at the conclusion of which few, if any, graduates have been able to perform a complete check and issue the torpedo to a firing ship in either an exercise or a warshot configuration. The graduates have been educated on the theory of the torpedo, but have not been trained to do the job required of them in the field. In the particular case cited, the torpedo is so designed that the torpedoman’s mate is not allowed to repair components or sub-assemblies, but must replace them as units (black boxes).
Electronic theory is not a necessary ingredient, at least in the portions served up in this torpedo course, in order that a man be trained to service and prepare one of these newer ASW torpedoes for issue. Instruction in the functions and inter-relations of the various replaceable components, the means and methods of determining the operability of each, and the torpedo as an assembly, is most certainly required. It is apparent, however, that the present ASW torpedo course has not been geared to the job facing the graduate when he reports to a tender, carrier, or ASW facility.
The theory of operation and the necessary education in electronics to understand and evaluate the more abnormal malfunctions or symptoms should be available in the torpedo workshop, but at the supervisory level rather than across the board for all ratings, as at present. Each bit of theory not actually required in a technician’s job requires classroom time that could better be spent on practical work and increases the time in prerequisite training in order for the trainee to understand a “nice to know,” but actually unnecessary, parcel of information.
How do men who have to do the job feel about the approach to technical training discussed and proposed above? A number of informal conversations with senior as well as junior enlisted maintenance technicians, with contractor representatives, and with instructors, both enlisted as well as officer, have been conducted, during which the substance of the proposed training plan was discussed. Reactions were varied, very vocal, and at times heated, to say the least, but the majority favored rather than opposed the concept.
A typical reaction was voiced by a Chief Missile Fire Control Technician, aboard a DLG who said, “I’m a repair technician, not a design engineer. The hours and hours I spent working out problems in Kirchoff’s Laws were utterly wasted. I haven’t used them since I left school.” Another reaction was, “If we did it that way [gearing the training to the job] we would not lose so many kids at the end of their first hitch. Industry would not want them so much.”
Certain other rather obvious advantages to the proposals made here, beyond the predicted increased retention rate, come to mind:
•The number of people in the training pipeline might be reduced—or the converse, a sharp rise in the number of school graduates with the same number of people in training as now. (Either of these conditions will be reflected by higher manning levels of better trained men in the fleet.)
•In all probability, a man with a lower I.Q. could be accepted for a training course, whereas he cannot be accepted for an educational course. (The higher I.Q. man could progress faster in seniority and responsibility, but the others would provide essential, trained manpower where it is needed the most.)
Our Fleet is begging for more trained men, which our present system has not been able to supply. Nor will these men be supplied if our traditional approach to education and training is continued.
Unless these proposals, or similar ones, are implemented, we simply will not be able to train enough career men to maintain and operate our missile-age Fleet.