No matter the resources it is a much more difficult task to manage folks numbering in the hundreds vs dozens.
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No matter the resources it is a much more difficult task to manage folks numbering in the hundreds vs dozens.
This is flat out wrong. If resourced properly, the task is not any harder than that for a smaller country. We just have to give a shit.
The Navy, and DoD in general, would completely fail if it was a normal business. We let too many people get away with too much shit and completely waste many of our resources. As someone who has been in operations my entire career, I can't tell you how many times I've been let down by the people who are supposed to be there to support us.
If only we had a three-star command to do all this difficult work. We could even give them a bunch of civilians, too. If only . . .
An Air Force the size of a single carrier air wing where everyone knows one another personally isn’t easier to manage personnel-wise? Okay, sounds realistic.
Having recently moved from one office, where there was a cast of hundreds, to another, where there are ten times less folks, I would be stating the blatantly obvious that personnel are a lot easier manage in my new office.
Did you read my post about the new Permanent Instructor Pilot program?
I’m not going to say I agree or disagree with that but I don’t have a reason to concede that as true or prove it as wrong. I just don’t believe that, based off my personal experience, we’re very interested in knowing as much about people’s interests, backgrounds, and qualifications as we should be, and then managing/assisting/guiding them in their careers as we should be.
There may very well be efficiencies that are gained by having a larger population as well.
I did. The first thing I thought about was if something like that could be applied to fleet units as well.
I don’t just think of the benefits of a program like that as a just a solution to manpower issues. I would hope that a program like that would produce instructors that are even better teachers and then you would have an even better product. Maybe it would result in less attrition and wasted resources at the VTs and even downstream from there.
In the fleet a program like that might result in less sorties spent on combat wingman codes and upgrades and more time spent on other aspects of readiness - i.e. mission sets a unit expects to execute, LFEs, etc. Like wlawr kind of alluded to, it seems like sorties are used to get people quals and then they don’t really use those quals much except for what I’ll call side benefits (i.e. a DL being able to evaluate a SL instead of getting experience and reps leading divisions).
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Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
There's no real "passive aggressiveness" about it. I don't really care if the aviation structures its community for personnel to permanently fly as O-3s or not. What I take issue with is the implicit argument that the entire statutory promotion structure has to change itself because it doesn't fit around aviation career timing.
There really are two simple solutions to the problems here:
1) Flight school doesn't count toward promotion or time fulfilling your service commitment, ie you remain an Ensign until you hit the fleet and once you get two years in a sea going command, you promote to LTJG. I likewise would have no issue for this being the case for any other officer training pipeline such as the nuke training pipeline. This will ensure that officers hit their sea tour gates in time for statutory promotion boards, even if there are delays in the initial training pipeline.
2) Some implementation of a flying LDO or warrant program, and people can fly as 20-30 yrs without worrying about being on a track for command-at-sea.
Those are both easier said than done, but it's better than allowing non-selects to hang around forever and keep their URL jobs, which will eventually create a system where it's virtually impossible for anyone to promote until someone retires.
Or, as I see it, the need to change to accommodate a very small minority of officers. Programs which give those folks some other options will be a good thing, but it doesn't mean the system is broken/needs overhaul simply because it doesn't work for 100% of the officer corps.
Software isn’t acceptable unless it can handle edge cases without breaking. I don’t see why a system that determines people’s livelihoods should be any different. Junk it, reform it, whatever. But throwing up our collective hands and saying “meh, we only unnecessarily fucked X percent of the officer corps” is not an acceptable COA.
It's an acceptable COA as long as the system keeps and promotes officers in enough talent and quality to sustain and (ideally) improve itself. There absolutely is a non-0 "X" that the Navy can live with.
I don't know that we meet this, though...working in the Pentagon the last two years (and counting!) has convinced me that almost everyone who's here after putting in 20 years simply lacks the imagination to do anything else.
I think you're conflating several different things here. Your software analogy misses the mark here for a couple reasons. First, the system isn't breaking - it functions just fine. No system will provide an optimal outcome for 100 percent of the people. It's competitive by nature, and that provides selectivity and ultimately enhances the overall quality of the force. Second, whatever retention challenges we have for one designator in 1 or 2 communities is not a function of people not being able to get off the command path and fly continuously for a 20 year career. We do ourselves a disservice to chalk up that highly complex problem merely to perceived shortcomings of the promotion system.
Your view of this issue is colored by your own experience, which you have to acknowledge, is an anomaly. If you're being honest with yourself, you own that outcome, not Big Navy or the promotion system.
Software is a poor metaphor. One great officer not making the next milestone may be an edge case, but it doesn't cause a stack overflow or halt of any sort.
What other (if any) military officer communities are pushing for the officer promotion system overhaul? Genuinely curious why and where this push is coming from. I work in the private sector (most days) at a fairly senior level, and the promotion system grass ain’t greener.