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The Houseman Report

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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by Eyal   » Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:35 am

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Houseman may have been well regarded as a theorist. But he reminds me of some anarcho-capitalists I've encountered online, who seem unable to grasp that human beings aren't spherical economic units in a vacuum whose sole desire is to improve their economic well-being.
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by PeterZ   » Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:23 am

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Eyal wrote:Houseman may have been well regarded as a theorist. But he reminds me of some anarcho-capitalists I've encountered online, who seem unable to grasp that human beings aren't spherical economic units in a vacuum whose sole desire is to improve their economic well-being.


LoL! Oh so right, Eyal!
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by Fox2!   » Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:21 pm

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Eyal wrote:Houseman may have been well regarded as a theorist. But he reminds me of some anarcho-capitalists I've encountered online, who seem unable to grasp that human beings aren't spherical economic units in a vacuum whose sole desire is to improve their economic well-being.


Consider an infinitely long radiator at 0 degrees K...

From a physics test someplace.
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by WeberFan   » Wed Aug 23, 2017 7:31 am

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kzt wrote:
John Prigent wrote:To be honest, Houseman reminds me of some highly-educated folk that I've had the misfortune to work beside. 'I have a degree, which proves that I have a brilliant mind. Don't pester me with actual facts.'

People with advanced degrees who are regarded as experts in their field often seem to feel this mysteriously translates to expertise in loosely related or even totally unrelated fields. No, being an expert in brain surgery does not mean you understand how to secure the internet connection better than the security engineer who has been doing this for 20 years, any more than his expertise qualifies him to evaluate your surgical procedures.

I've spent a lot of time working in countries and cultures around the world where an academic credential seems to mean everything. Unfortunately, my experience has been that they may know everything, but they can't do anything. Their theoretical knowledge never seems to translate down to the simple practicality required to actually get work done. "You may know a lot about the subject, but do you have any idea what actually works?" They may say they do, but my experience is that they're (more often than not) clueless. And the more advanced their academic credentials are, (often) the more "full of it" they are. There's a reason why a BS is called a "Bulls###" degree, a MS is called a "More S###" degree, and a PhD is called a "Piled Higher and Deeper" degree.
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by WeberFan   » Wed Aug 23, 2017 7:38 am

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Fireflair wrote:This sort of expertise conferred by education is one of the pillars of friction in the military between officers and enlisted personnel. One that is increasingly problematic due to the growing high tech training military enlisted personnel receive. Officers get it drummed into them that they are better than the enlisted men, smarted, more trained, etc etc. That they are there to lead them and enlisted men aren't capable without that officer's leadership.

My experience is that Naval Academy graduates, or military schools like the Citadel, turn out the ones most likely to have this attitude, while ROTC programs produce it in much lesser, but varying degrees. Meanwhile mustangs generally are the easiest to work with and get the best support from their enlisted personnel.

And this may have been true a long time ago. Today's Navy, by example, requires a significantly qualified recruit for even the most basic tasks. Nuclear officers on submarines run into friction when they encounter their enlisted nuclear operators. People who are 2-4 years of service on the ship, highly educated and well trained. People who effectively have degrees in nuclear technology already, not to mention the experience in the field. These people regard officers as simply management. The officer's higher education and vaunted training is so much smoke blowing to them.

Like wise the special operators I've interacted with before retirement. Most of them, despite the gung ho chest pounding reputation, were intelligent, well educated and highly competent individuals. They might respect an officer and follow his guidance but they had short shift to give to any officer who thought he was better by virtue of simply being an officer.

A broad generalization, but I don't think you're too far off the mark. Yes, I served in the Military as an officer. No, I didn't perceive my troops the way you describe. Rather, I had the philosophy that my troops were the best instructors I could have ever imagined. I couldn't even begin to count the hours I spent as a JO learning from them. So much knowledge they gained that wasn't "in the book." Yes, I viewed my role as a leader for those troops, but I also viewed my role as being the person who would have to use the weapons systems they made available for me to use... So it was incumbent on me to learn everything possible about it so I could use it as effectively as possible. To this day, I look back fondly on my time in the military, not because of what I did as much as the time I was privileged to spend with the NCOs who took the time to teach me.
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by kzt   » Wed Aug 23, 2017 12:49 pm

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Apparently teaching sailors how to do their job is so old-school. The have cut schools from 15 months to 3 months, and they can just learn it through study during their copious free time on ship. They have apparently also done that to the junior officers SWOS course. I'm assured this has no connection to the 4 DDs that have collided with merchant ships or land in the last 6 months.
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by phillies   » Wed Aug 23, 2017 1:40 pm

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The Antietam and the Ticonderoga were CGs, guided missile cruisers,

kzt wrote:Apparently teaching sailors how to do their job is so old-school. The have cut schools from 15 months to 3 months, and they can just learn it through study during their copious free time on ship. They have apparently also done that to the junior officers SWOS course. I'm assured this has no connection to the 4 DDs that have collided with merchant ships or land in the last 6 months.
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by Theemile   » Wed Aug 23, 2017 1:51 pm

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phillies wrote:The Antietam and the Ticonderoga were CGs, guided missile cruisers,

kzt wrote:Apparently teaching sailors how to do their job is so old-school. The have cut schools from 15 months to 3 months, and they can just learn it through study during their copious free time on ship. They have apparently also done that to the junior officers SWOS course. I'm assured this has no connection to the 4 DDs that have collided with merchant ships or land in the last 6 months.


The Tico is rusting in a muddy berth in Virgina iirc. The Lake Camplain was the CG in the other incident in May.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by robert132   » Fri Aug 25, 2017 3:21 pm

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Theemile wrote:The Tico is rusting in a muddy berth in Virgina iirc. The Lake Camplain was the CG in the other incident in May.


The Ticonderoga (CG 47) and 2 other non-VLS Tico class are rusting quietly at Philadelphia in the storage basin. They aren't even considered reactivation assets or candidates for sale. Parts are being stripped as needed to keep other ships running, mostly engineering plant parts since they share a lot in common not only with the CG's still in service but also the Arleigh Burke class DDGs and the Kidd class ships sold to Taiwan. They look like they've been ridden hard and put up wet (moth eaten in other words.)

USS Antietam and USS Lake Champlain were the 7th Fleet cruisers that either ran aground in Tokyo Bay or ran into that South Korean fishing vessel.
****

Just my opinion of course and probably not worth the paper it's not written on.
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Re: The Houseman Report
Post by phillies   » Sat Aug 26, 2017 11:38 am

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I stand corrected on which CGs had incidents.

phillies wrote:The Antietam and the Ticonderoga were CGs, guided missile cruisers,

kzt wrote:Apparently teaching sailors how to do their job is so old-school. The have cut schools from 15 months to 3 months, and they can just learn it through study during their copious free time on ship. They have apparently also done that to the junior officers SWOS course. I'm assured this has no connection to the 4 DDs that have collided with merchant ships or land in the last 6 months.
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