SEA STORY: The Fall of the USS Gettysburg.

This report begins with the technical details of what went wrong the night Gettysburg mistakenly shot down an F/A-18. But the broader problems are even more disturbing:

Going even deeper – and this is perhaps more concerning in the long run – USS Gettysburg completed all the pre-deployment training required for a ship to be certified to deploy. However, the ship had performed at what would have been, as recently as the first decade of this century, a failure-level. Indeed, Gettysburg’s substandard performance continues to be a matter of jest in the strike group to which Gettysburg belongs – the strike group responsible for certifying the ship as ready for deployment, and assignment to the Truman Strike Group. Indeed, the training performance of the entire strike group appears to have been sub-standard, and not just Gettysburg.

How does this happen? Why would we send a ship or a strike group to a war zone if they aren’t deemed to perform at an acceptable level?

The fact is that there are too few ships of the type and capability of Gettysburg. That fact is that there are too few aircraft carrier to meet the unquenchable demand of the military’s Combatant Commands. Everyone wants aircraft carrier strike groups in their neck of the woods, and the fact that the Navy is steadily decreasing in size, is not the Combatant Commander’s problem. It is incumbent upon the Navy to say, “no.” Yet, the Navy does not say no. The Navy is determined to pull its own weight and respond to the demand signal. The result is that the Navy will not say, “let’s take a pause here. This ship isn’t quite ready, and she needs more work. We will fill the gap with another, more ready ship.” There simply are not enough ships – and certainly not enough Aegis cruisers and aircraft carriers – to allow for this. Instead, the ship is certified.

Of course, this is a different Navy, today, and as is the case with the shortage of cruisers and aircraft carriers, this is a larger issue and one which should concern us all in any future conflict.

Indeed.