High priority: Revamping Navy’s fleet

U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Scott H. Swift said Sept. 14 that the Navy is revamping the way combat ship crews train, maintain vessels, and get credentialed for missions at sea after multiple U.S. 7th Fleet collisions that claimed the lives of 17 sailors, and a ship grounding in the Asia-Pacific region. Swift, who controls 60 percent of the Navy’s combat ships and more than 140,000 sailors from the West Coast to the waters of North Korea and Australia. “I’m the one that is responsible (for fixing the issues)” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune. Swift has proposed the creation of a Naval Surface Group Western Pacific, made up of 30-to-50 experts in engineering, safety, maintenance, seamanship and training that will report directly to him. It may begin working on the issues as early as next week. Over the last 10-plus years, the Navy has doubled the number of warships based overseas in order to boost its “forward presence” and rapidly respond to crises in area waters like the South China and Yellow seas. Swift and Adm. Harry Harris Jr., commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, continue to have ongoing discussions about prioritizing missions, increasingly with an eye on ensuring combat ships are fully trained, and resourced for their operations. … “I know what the wrong answer is,” Swift said. (It is) “the status quo … And that’s unacceptable.” (Source: San Diego Union-Tribune 09/14/17) Gulf Coast Note: U.S. Adm. Harry Harris Jr. graduated from high school in Pensacola, Fla., the son of a career Navy man in a training billet at NAS Pensacola. None of the ships involved in the collisions in the Asia-Pacific region were built on the Gulf Coast. UPDATE: Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer is set to testify Sept. 19 before a Senate committee on two deadly ship collisions in the Pacific. The appearance by Spencer and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson will be before the Senate Armed Services Committee at 8:30 a.m. (CT) comes after service officials testified in the House last week, saying there was no excuse for the collisions of the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald destroyers that killed 17 sailors.