Every sailor on every Navy ship needs to believe and understand that, at some point, the nation will require them to go into harm’s way. When they do, they will engage in battle. When they engage in battle, the other side will do everything within its power to kill them and the Navy will incur battle damage. The Navy needs to devote significant effort in training crews to become expert operators and maintainers under battle conditions; to be able to maintain, troubleshoot, repair, bring back to service, and, if required, create workarounds to restore functionality. Sailors need to gain and improve on these skills as part of their daily routines, and this effort needs to be a top priority at the organizational level.
There are actions Navy leaders can influence and control at the unit level in becoming system experts. These actions will not require huge investment from outside the lifelines of individual ships. A critical first step is to make increasing these organic maintenance skills a cultural priority. At the core, this means wanting to do it and committing. Once the Navy embraces that culture, and this includes support from all levels of the chain of command, it can institute behaviors that build and expand those skills.
Here follow some thoughts and practices that might help chart a course for Navy crews to improve organic maintenance skills. Over the past 44 years I have learned a lot from great maintainers and leaders, and perhaps some of these practices might help our forces today.
Involve Sailors in Casualty Repair Efforts
A casualty report (CasRep) informs the operational and administrative chain of command that the ship has suffered a material casualty that significantly impacts its ability to conduct warfare. This is a big deal, and these reports are briefed to the ship’s chain of command every morning. So, when it comes time to correct the issue, crew efforts to assist with the repair must be prioritized. One way to increase sailors’ technical skill is to have them be an integral part of any repair efforts associated with a CasRep.
One submarine I served on had a policy that two or three sailors (in a perfect world one from each underway watch section) were assigned to the repair effort from beginning to end. The commanding officer and chief of the boat’s guiding principles made “learning your gear” a priority and would defer other training for those sailors to support repairs.
If the repair was beyond ship’s force capability, those sailors would be attached to the hip of any off-hull technical assist representative. They would perform the “tag-out,” which has a collateral effect of helping them learn how to isolate equipment in battle or during damage control efforts. Then they would assist in disassembly, trouble shooting, and problem isolation, the repair itself, and the retest. These sailors also would attempt to gain as much higher-level knowledge as possible from the experts conducing the repair. In several cases, the tech was a former sailor and happy to increase the crew’s level of knowledge. If a component was sent off-hull to a shop, we would ensure that sailors be allowed to make periodic trips to learn advanced repair techniques. If a component had to be rigged off the ship or out of the way, the sailors would learn the fundamentals of rigging and the rigging path and method.
To maximize learning across the ship, as part of the tasking, the sailors also would also train others in the division on the repair process. This would include what caused the casualty and if there were lessons learned that might have avoided the issue, how to safely and within procedure work around the casualty if possible, how the casualty would have impacted the ship during battle, how to mitigate during battle, and lessons associated with the repair and retest.
For repairs within the capability of ship’s force, the sailors would order the parts, track the parts with the supply department, conduct the repairs and subsequent retest, and help write the casualty correction (CasCor) message. And they still gave the training to the rest of the division.
As a result of this policy, this ship significantly increased its ability to fight hurt. The crew knew the ship’s priorities were to have them learn to operate and maintain the ship, not only during normal operations, but also during battle. The sailors gained technical skills and confidence, increased pride in ownership, learned the “principles of operation,” and understood how to cope with loss of equipment. They knew that in war, it would be up to them to keep up the fight and win—there would be no ability to call for help, and the difference between victory or defeat lay in their hands.
This approach should be more widely adapted by U.S. forces afloat, but not only for CasReps. If a ship needs off-hull assistance to conduct repair, there is an opportunity to increase warfighting skills. Applying this same policy to all repair efforts will grow the Navy’s ability to restore warfighting capability when alone (and unafraid) in conflict.
Combine Training with PMS
Combining training with the Preventative Maintenance System (PMS) also would increase sailors’ organic repair skills. Here is a trick my chief used when I was an electronic technician third class (ET3). He was not a fan of large group training, in which the whole division not on watch sat in the mess decks and listened to a lecture for the required hour, and then filled out the required “Record of Training” to check the box in the Short-Range Training Plan. His goal was to have each sailor become a systems expert, and they could not get there by falling asleep during mess decks lectures. They had to turn wrenches or put multimeters on equipment.
So, in addition to the mandatory, and usually boring, training, he would break the training group into two or three sailors and have us perform PMS under the supervision of the division expert on that piece of equipment. In fact, sometimes, we performed the PMS under the supervision and guidance of the chief! In doing so, we learned the proper way to perform the maintenance, such as how to tag out and isolate (again, valuable knowledge in battle), and tons about gear that cannot be taught by reading the PMS card or a technical manual. They taught us what to look for to predict failure and the importance of log keeping and looking for trends. It was some of the best hands-on training I ever received, and it set the tone for sailors who understood and embraced the criticality of maintaining warfighting equipment, as well as gaining the pride associated with knowing your “stuff.” There also was value for the chief because he got to know the strengths and weaknesses of the crew and was able develop plans to improve them. It also gave him insight into how the equipment was operating and if there was need for extra attention. Last, he could fulfill the PMS system requirement to have performed a monitor, even though one might say it was more a training event than a monitor event (however one might argue the goals of the monitor system were all met).
The chief also reviewed the Bureau of Inspection and Survey (InSurv) information about systems and equipment found on our ship or class. He determined what is in trouble the most—gear that InSurv found the least or most improperly maintained. He took a hard look at our ship’s gear to see if we had the same issues. Then he put together hands-on training, like the PMS idea, that attacked those troubled systems. Last, he set up “training aids” for us at sea and in port that allowed us to take things apart and put them back together, or align or measure, under expert guidance, without putting shipboard systems at risk. As a result of the chief’s training approach, every sailor under his guidance improved his skills, and most became fleet experts in their fields.
Embrace TSRAs
One final idea is to fully embrace a program already in place and dictated by the fleet and type commanders—the Total Ships Readiness Assessment (TSRA). TSRAs were born a couple of decades ago as the type commanders took action to mitigate the growing atrophy of maintenance skills in the fleet. The type commanders were finding that on most ships, the combat systems were significantly degraded, and the crews were not skilled enough to recognize the level of degradation. The idea was to have system experts at the Regional Maintenance Centers (RMC) come to the ships and groom critical systems and equipment prior to deployment. There were two goals—restore the systems to a state that supported deployment and train the crews on maintenance.
While the nature of the TSRA has evolved over the years, and the surface and submarine force programs have some differences, there still is a mandated predeployment grooming period for each ship. Ships should take advantage of this “freebie”! Your boss has told you via instruction that this is important, so there is no excuse not to assign sailors to the RMC experts. Navy leaders should impart on sailors that their learning goal should be to how to perform these grooms independently, and eventually not need off-hull assistance. The thought every sailor should have embedded in his or her brain is that they must always keep systems up to the same state of readiness as when the TSRA is complete. Equipment should not be something ships let lapse and degrade and then bring up to speed prior to deployment. The Navy must reinforce the culture that war will not support the luxury of a TSRA prior to being ordered into the fight.
Over the past few decades, the Navy has chosen (some might say forced) to devote its time to training operators, while leaving maintenance at the pier. Maintenance training has been minimal, with A and C schools becoming more individual training with sailors pushing through power point slides. I challenge Navy leaders to ask new sailors how effective their maintenance pipeline training was. They will not like the answer. As a result, the Navy has lost some of its edge in performing anything but the most basic maintenance and relies significantly on outside repair agencies. This will not serve the service well in a high-end fight, where ships will incur damage and need their crews to repair the gear at sea. However, the Navy can turn this around! First, the service needs to change its culture and put improving maintenance skill on a pedestal. Then, leaders need to develop practices within their own control to improve sailors’ skills. Maintenance will win the war.