Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

[Flash]

Go to any finance or ID card office and tell me that 20% of that workforce couldn’t be culled and achieve the same level of output.

My main experience with civilians before I got to DC was those same folks, and I often wondered the same thing...until I was the Admin O of my second squadron and had to deal with admin BS all the time and finally understood why many of those folks were so surly.

After getting to a staff job and subsequently transitioning to the civil service myself I saw that there was more to our civilian workforce than PSD and ID folks, and cutting 20% of the folks that I work with would do nothing but seriously degrade our country's defense capabilities. Can some trimming of the workforce take place across the government? Sure, but it should be done as part of a deliberative and careful process to ensure we keep the capabilities and resources we need and not in a haphazard and abrupt fashion that originates from tweets by randos and morons.

Our acquisitions process is yet another example of the same systemic issue we have, people and corps are not asked to perform to any real metric and failure doesn’t hurt.

There is a lot more to our acquisitions process than civil servants being a pain in the ass with a raft of laws, rules, regulations that govern the process along with Congress involved that make everything the way it is.

 

[BigRed389]

Which is why I’m a fan of people like Alex Miller in have been some of the largest change agents. That GD project we’ve been hemorrhaging money on? He’s the one that took the PMs money after we embarrassed them to the SecArmy. This was after watching their engineers ignore our feedback for three years so it was gratifying to say the least. ACM-RA is the same problem. They have a green suit LtCol who is effectively just a mouthpiece for an entrenched GS15, and that guy retiring will move us forward a decade, because he refuses to go into the scif and see the problems we’re asking to solve through the needs statements they’ve been receiving.

The problem isn’t that we have a civilian workforce, it’s that we have a lot of our civilian work force being guys who got tired of shaving or pt tests, found a job that pays 3 times as much to work 6 hours, and now they’re being asked what have you done to a pikachu face. Or its people that stopped reading the mail they were getting from those people telling them the problems they face. Those people need to produce or go.

I don’t disagree.

Problem there is that while we have DRP, there has been zero results in either DOGE providing modernized IT/digital efficiency (that’s been a nonexistent fucking joke) to allow people to do more with less, and nothing on restructuring the workforce.

Contracts are where the government gets fucked repeatedly in dealing with the big prime contractors. Losing contracting talent, especially if they don’t want to stick around long enough within civil service to be accountable for their contracts, will make this problem waaaay worse.

Same for any essential function across the board. Tired of dealing with shitty civil service engineers? Not doing anything to be competitive with the private sector to recruit/retain talent won’t help things either.

I’d also gladly shitcan the “compliance” weenies that do things like radio airworthiness checks…but the incentive structure there is fucked because those guys only take risk if they let things go without having every box ticked, while they take none to make the programs waste time and taxpayer money to do more work.

And as Flash pointed out, there is a maze of bureau and regulations that get thrown on top of everything else. I’d gladly shit can entire functions of DCMA billets that are checklist checkers, who I think actively do more harm than good…but they’re required by DOD.

 

[Brett327]

It is bizarre going to meetings with our gov team members and seeing their decreasing numbers as they randomly take the DRP or get laid off. Critical people too, on one-person-deep teams. The killer is in contracts personnel. So many of them worked remotely and bailed rather than RTO.

You kill money movement, you kill the organization.

This…

@Lawman
Here’s a data point for you. Take a relatively small civilian footprint with 150 GS employees across all grades in an organization of 1000, then take an indiscriminate 20% reduction in that workforce. What you get is a significant degradation in capacity. That means less training for deploying units, less force generation, fewer test events for priority DoD weapons systems. Now multiply that effect across DoD. Our entire force structure is now at greater risk.

You sure as fuck aren’t going to get “about the same level of output.”

Only someone with the most superficial understanding of our DoD civilian workforce could make such an absurd statement. That you would assert, without irony, that because you’ve worked with some shitty civilians, you’re now qualified to weigh in on civilian workforce management is further evidence that you’re looking at this through a purely partisan lens.

So, while you’re asking to not be treated like a JO, you might start by demonstrating some thinking that’s a bit more sophisticated than you’ve shown us here. Even if your goal was to reduce the DoD civilian workforce, an end that could be credibly argued for, the result of this administration’s execution has been a complete disaster. That you’re cheerleading what has happened by referencing the fucking ID card office tells us everything we need to know about how much actual thought you’ve put into this.

So, I’ll reiterate… you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, and nobody should listen to your hare-brained takes.

 

[Lawman]

This…

@Lawman
Here’s a data point for you. Take a relatively small civilian footprint with 150 GS employees across all grades in an organization of 1000, then take an indiscriminate 20% reduction in that workforce. What you get is a significant degradation in capacity. That means less training for deploying units, less force generation, fewer test events for priority DoD weapons systems. Now multiply that effect across DoD. Our entire force structure is now at greater risk.

You sure as fuck aren’t going to get “about the same level of output.”

Only someone with the most superficial understanding of our DoD civilian workforce could make such an absurd statement. That you would assert, without irony, that because you’ve worked with some shitty civilians, you’re now qualified to weigh in on civilian workforce management is further evidence that you’re looking at this through a purely partisan lens.

So, while you’re asking to not be treated like a JO, you might start by demonstrating some thinking that’s a bit more sophisticated than you’ve shown us here. Even if your goal was to reduce the DoD civilian workforce, an end that could be credibly argued for, the result of this administration’s execution has been a complete disaster. That you’re cheerleading what has happened by referencing the fucking ID card office tells us everything we need to know about how much actual thought you’ve put into this.

So, I’ll reiterate… you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, and nobody should listen to your hare-brained takes.

Yeah sorry Brett but having just recently listened to the likes of Operational Test Command (who I’m collocated with) ask why RVCT-A is such a bad execution that it is making the test pilots violently ill and then make NO CHANGE and recommend continue on the contracting I’m not buying your crocodile tears. This isn’t “some civilians” this is multiple PMs with the same problem, a green suit rep to talk to leadership with entrenched overpaid people who found a way to “continue to serve,” that haven’t delivered dick to the warfighter.

Every year we hear the same “we’re gonna reform and DOD acquisitions and waste” to no actual effective action. You can not like the COA but at the very least there is one being executed. If it forces us to relook in short order or long term and effectively hire the means to support we will be better served than standing around waiting for the perfect COA while you and others who have “finally seen why” yell back at those of us frustrated to see flight hours cut so we can continue to fund dead ends are told to shut up and color.

Or just retire. It’s amazing we can never find the civilian government employee/department that would say yes there are people that need to go and it won’t have an impact on them leaving. A great example is the retired civilian sitting in a room full of leadership telling them we should just buy foreflight when the tablet the Army is fielding doesn’t have an IOS, but somehow we’re the A holes for wishing guys like him would, “just go fishing.”

 

[Lawman]

I don’t disagree.

Problem there is that while we have DRP, there has been zero results in either DOGE providing modernized IT/digital efficiency (that’s been a nonexistent fucking joke) to allow people to do more with less, and nothing on restructuring the workforce.

Contracts are where the government gets fucked repeatedly in dealing with the big prime contractors. Losing contracting talent, especially if they don’t want to stick around long enough within civil service to be accountable for their contracts, will make this problem waaaay worse.

Same for any essential function across the board. Tired of dealing with shitty civil service engineers? Not doing anything to be competitive with the private sector to recruit/retain talent won’t help things either.

I’d also gladly shitcan the “compliance” weenies that do things like radio airworthiness checks…but the incentive structure there is fucked because those guys only take risk if they let things go without having every box ticked, while they take none to make the programs waste time and taxpayer money to do more work.

And as Flash pointed out, there is a maze of bureau and regulations that get thrown on top of everything else. I’d gladly shit can entire functions of DCMA billets that are checklist checkers, who I think actively do more harm than good…but they’re required by DOD.

Thats the thing though, I don’t think we’re anywhere near done with this action.

The hiring freeze and removal of people is part of a wider set of steps in something that is a necessary evolution or crucible to put ourselves through. Right now nobody is really getting shot at while we “figure it out.” We won’t get to count on a 1942 to find ourselves. Not against the pacing threat we are matching up against.

There are a lot of people/administrations that have been happy to sit around admiring the problem, but then I sit through and see action like what we just did in ATI some of those leftover people are freaking out. However, a lot of what is being done is the actions some of us in the operational side have been demanding and are finally seeing. And things like the box checkers… a lot of that is coming thank god.

 

[taxi1]

The hiring freeze and removal of people is part of a wider set of steps in something that is a necessary evolution or crucible to put ourselves through.

There’s removing people, and then there’s shitting on them.

Twenty-two year old DOGE software bros sent in by their government to throw out workers with TS/SCI clearances and commensurate knowledge, and then shitting on the ones who remain. All to cheers from the masses accusing them of all being worthless POS. You have to wonder if anyone’s loyalty to country will waiver.

 

[BigRed389]

Thats the thing though, I don’t think we’re anywhere near done with this action.

The hiring freeze and removal of people is part of a wider set of steps in something that is a necessary evolution or crucible to put ourselves through. Right now nobody is really getting shot at while we “figure it out.” We won’t get a 1942 to find ourselves.

There are a lot of people/administrations that have been happy to sit around admiring the problem, but then I sit through and see action like what we just did in ATI some of those leftover people are freaking out. However, a lot of what is being done is the actions some of us in the operational side have been demanding and are finally seeing. And things like the box checkers… a lot of that is coming thank god.

So you say, but good luck getting rid of the box checkers.

Everybody will come out clutching pearls on how it’ll get people killed… and they’re also not totally wrong. Shit like airworthiness certs, safety, ordnance rules, we all know all that shit also exists for a reason. And nobody (including the operational side) ever really wants to accept risk. Which outside a shooting war entirely makes sense.

The only real “fast” changes I’ve seen were made because our ships have been in combat. That’s it. Absent that, all the “evolution” stuff is just going to be another feel good circle jerk IMO. Especially as I see no adoption of actual commercial industry tools to go faster. Want DOD to go SpaceX fast? No signs of adopting any of the processes or tools that make them successful (or going fast to just blow shit up).

On the broader “evolution” thing…you’ve got more faith than I do that there is an actual coherent strategy to this. Because here’s the thing. No matter what, when we’re done with all this musical chairs, we still need good people in the right spots to do the right things to make it all work. Nothing we are doing incentivizes that right now.

You are essentially endorsing applying corrective measure for poor unit level performance to doing a hard reset of an entire force. Maybe Army rotary wing material commands can afford to take a knee. Navy and the missile defense community is being asked to fix the plane while it’s flying, while some random % of parts are falling off (some might be good, some might actually be good parts), and also making the plane go faster and carrying more shit

 

[Lawman]

So you say, but good luck getting rid of the box checkers.

Everybody will come out clutching pearls on how it’ll get people killed… and they’re also not totally wrong. Shit like airworthiness certs, safety, ordnance rules, we all know all that shit also exists for a reason. And nobody (including the operational side) ever really wants to accept risk. Which outside a shooting war entirely makes sense.

The only real “fast” changes I’ve seen were made because our ships have been in combat. That’s it. Absent that, all the “evolution” stuff is just going to be another feel good circle jerk IMO. Especially as I see no adoption of actual commercial industry tools to go faster. Want DOD to go SpaceX fast? No signs of adopting any of the processes or tools that make them successful (or going fast to just blow shit up).

On the broader “evolution” thing…you’ve got more faith than I do that there is an actual coherent strategy to this. Because here’s the thing. No matter what, when we’re done with all this musical chairs, we still need good people in the right spots to do the right things to make it all work. Nothing we are doing incentivizes that right now.

You are essentially endorsing applying corrective measure for poor unit level performance to doing a hard reset of an entire force. Maybe Army rotary wing material commands can afford to take a knee. Navy and the missile defense community is being asked to fix the plane while it’s flying, while some random % of parts are falling off (some might be good, some might actually be good parts), and also making the plane go faster and carrying more shit

Oh I don’t think anybody is taking a knee, but my faith in this has been in looking at historic disruptions to the system and asking whether we came out the other side better or worse for it. Transformation in Contact is our buzzword name for it. But seeing the positive actions accomplished in just the last few months or year that have been long overdue, or seeing some of the most recalcitrant O6/7s get hammered and their fiefdoms burned down recently, that goes a long way toward restoring some hope that the end position to this is better. I doubt anybody that got hit with the Goldwater Nicholas or Key West agreements thought they were good ideas or well executed at the time. Would you argue now with the benefit of hindsight those weren’t end improvements to our structure?

There is some seriously stupid problems or entrenched strategies/people/departments that are not going to just fix themselves by hoping for somebody to dream up a perfect strategy.

Lots of people have done clutching pearls, and from what I’m seeing with some of our change agents that has been a self deceleration for closer inspection. I know two PMs that are close to just being “put against the wall” career wise because they’ve produced nothing for the investment that is practically fraud at this point. Like you aren’t a CFT, you aren’t allowed to be experimental, you were supposed to produce a viable end product that responds to the needs of the requirements document into the hands of who needs it. Don’t show us your roadmap and ask for more money.

“That’s the way it’s always been” should be a bar fine.

Comes down to why have faith, because of guys like this dude.

12 minutes in he is airing out the laundry on the UAS problems I talked about earlier in this thread.

 

[Gatordev]

The big issue I saw in dealing with the civilian Program people (both GS and Contract) wasn't necessarily the need to cull the numbers. It was lack of accountability. If someone didn't meet a deadline on a spreadsheet, it got rolled to the next deadline and no one seemed to suffer from it except the end users that had to execute the plan (sometimes that was an uniformed entity, sometimes that was a contract entity).

The only time I really saw people (at the program/staff level) actually jump through their ass was when the office of the President was exerting pressure to have something signed and authorized by a certain date. Then there were emails on weekends (mostly by the uniformed people, mind you) and the strict box-checking rules were all of a sudden reinterpreted in order to meet the deadline.

Obviously this was more on the acquisition side (which is of course is its own mess) rather than the governmental side, but it was a notable takeaway, and I'm guessing universal across the U.S. government as a whole.

 

[taxi1]

Transformation in Contact is our buzzword name for it.

Curious…are you involved? Interesting article…

https://breakingdefense.com/2025/07...drones-army-examines-battlefield-calculation/