US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
US Navy to retain more underperforming sailors
With recruiters struggling to fill open slots, the military branch has quit pushing out service members who failed to get promotedRecruiting struggles and staffing shortfalls have prompted the US Navy to suspend its so-called “up-or-out” policy of discharging veteran service members who haven’t performed well enough to get promoted.
The Navy will instead retain underperformers to reduce its number of “gaps-at-sea,” meaning unfilled jobs on deployed vessels, according to a on Thursday by the chief of naval operations in Washington. A pilot program allowing more veteran service members to remain with the Navy and qualify for retirement benefits is designed to improve retention efforts and “fleet readiness.”
Sailors were previously forced to leave active duty and transfer to the Naval Reserve if they didn’t advance to a high enough rank within a certain time period, called “high-year tenure.” The two-year pilot program will affect about 1,600 service members who otherwise might have been pushed out.
The Navy reportedly has about 9,000 amid recruiting struggles by all branches of the US military. The US Army, for example, fell 25% short of its recruiting goal, enlisting 15,000 fewer new troops than targeted, in its fiscal year ended on September 30. The Navy had a similar shortfall in recruits for its reserve force.
The new retention program marks the latest step by the Navy this year to address its staffing shortfall. The branch previously relaxed its rules to allow senior enlisted advisers, known as command master chiefs, to serve as long as 36 years. It’s also offering enlistment bonuses and loan repayments totaling as much as $115,000 for new recruits. The Navy raised its maximum enlistment age to 41 from 39 and tweaked its hiring standards to allow more recruits who barely passed their entrance exams.
“The Navy understands we are in a challenging recruiting environment, and we are focused on making sure that every active-component sailor who wants to remain on active duty has that opportunity,” Rear Admiral James Waters said in a statement.
PLAN would be like "you wot mate? Yes please!"
Tico would suck up huge amount of ROCN budget
All these new projects is spreading themselves quite thin. Do they have the funding and capability to go for both a VLO bomber and a hypersonic striker simultaneously?
In any case, the advent of hypersonic bombers favours China.
At the moment, mainland China is within range of the USAF as they have access to local bases in the Western part of the Pacific. In comparison, the Continental US and places like Hawaii and Alaska are secure because they are too far away from China.
But the advent of hypersonic bombers with a longer effective range than current bombers means the Chinese Air Force can now reach these previously secure targets.
Why not?
The US never spend below 5% of their GDP on the military every year throughout the entire Cold War.
What makes you think that the US wouldn't do that again this time, even if doing so would eat into other sectors of the economy deemed more important for the lifelihood of the American people?
Last edited:
Being able to afford something in the past =/= Being able to afford the same thing again today.
Heck, you just have to check out the 'big mac index' were back 30 years, people on minimum wage in the US were able to afford 2 point something big macs, while today they can't even afford 1 big mac on minimum wage.
Could the US jack up military spending even more? Yes, but it won't be as easily or painless as it used to be, not to mention actual grift and corruption is in fact probably higher now than then lol.
What the US really need is reforms, moreover deep and thorough ones, but it really doesn't look like that there are actual good leaders in the US that can head those reforms lol.
inelastic cost of living (food/housing/medical/education/childcare), inflation, dead weight spending (interest rates, prior commitments, welfare necessary solely to keep people alive because they can't get jobs) and corruption take their cut and are far higher than before.
back in the 1960's the average American literally did not have to worry about their living if a single man graduated merely from high school. Today? Not even close.