Images from meal trays aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) are shocking.
Consider the one above.
A piece of meat that looks like a long forgotten slice of Steak-Umm’s; a glob of something that may be refried beans; and a portion of what are clearly canned carrots – none of it looks appetizing. And with this and a number of other images, are reports of sailors and onboard Marines losing up to 30 pounds of bodyweight (that on the USS Tripoli [LHA-7]).
All of it suggests something terribly wrong with the U.S. Navy.
As someone who served in the Navy – and remembers that service with pride and my responsibility to the sailors who worked for me – this is all very difficult to accept.
But moving past the outrage, the reasons are clear.
It would be easy to direct all the anger at Donald Trump and his grotesque “Secretary of War”, Pete Hegseth; they in fact do bear blame for their belief in the ability to achieve a short decisive victory over Iran. How much the military chain of command pushed back – or if they even understood the capabilities of Iran to fight back – are unknown.
What is clear is that two key factors in any military mission were overlooked – logistics and fleet size.
There is a long spoken military maxim (attributed to Omar Bradley): amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.
If the aircraft, military formations, and ships – along with the personnel – cannot be maintained and supplied, a military campaign will fail.
For example, prior to the start of Hitler’s advance into Russia (Operation Barbarossa), German military logisticians had forecast the date and depth of the advance when the German army would need to stop for rest, refit, and resupply.
Their forecast was ignored – and when the advance had to stop as predicted, the delays brought on by not having staged all the needed supplies resulted in the loss of momentum and rapid movement with the autumn and winters storms that followed.
(I’m not suggesting the Germans would have ultimately been successful or that it would have been desirable – only the cost of failing to plan for logistics).
Turning back to the U.S. Navy.
The broad expanse of the Pacific and extended into the Indian Ocean presents the most extreme situation in terms of logistics and an extended supply chain.
But the Navy learned how to make it work during World War II.
While it took the period from 1941 to 1944 to perfect the system, by then they had established a supply chain that supported the aircraft, men, and ships that carried the battle ultimately to Okinawa and the coast of Japan.
Merchant ships, manned by civilians, would bring supplies to anchorages – such as the primary location at Ulithi atoll in the Caroline Islands.
There, either directly or indirectly, supplies and fuel would be transferred to Navy auxiliaries (ammunition ships, supply ships, tankers), which would then sail west toward the combat zone to rendezvous with combatants and do transfers by underway replenishment.
After the war, the Navy maintained a fleet of auxiliaries with large gray ships that provided ammunition, provisions, dry cargo, etc. These were commissioned ships with Navy personnel.
The auxiliary fleet was maintained until the 1990s when the end of the Cold War resulted in decommissioning the ships or transferring them to the Global Sealift Command (ships manned by civilians).
At the same time, the US adopted a ‘forward basing’ strategy of building on-shore major facilities around Eurasia that would support US forces in the long term goal of containing both China and Russia.
Under this strategy, Global Sealift Command ships would supply the bases. The bases in turn would provide all needed supplies during port calls. Underway replenishment would continue by some of the Global Sealift Command – particularly for ammunition and fuel.
The U.S. strategy worked – the Fifth Fleet headquarters at Bahrain was a primary logistics hub for supplying the ships deployed to the Arabian Sea.
It worked at least until the start of the war on Iran – when Iranian missiles and drones effectively destroyed the base and its ability to sustain deployed forces.
So, Global Sealift Command had to assume both the duties of bringing supplies to forward deployed staging areas, but also having responsibility for bringing those supplies to the operating ships themselves.
The problem is the Global Sealift Command does not have a large enough fleet to to perform both functions – bring supplies to staging bases and deliver them to actual operating forces.
Combine that with the distances – e.g., San Diego to the Arabian Sea is almost 10,000 nautical miles, any travel is measured in weeks to months. An ongoing train of supply ships extending thousands of nautical miles would be needed to adequately supply deployed ships.
When I see the photo above I see primarily a quantity problem – there isn’t enough food available for hungry sailors. When someone is hungry they’ll eat whatever’s there if properly prepared – canned or fresh.
And it’s not just the supply ships that are limited – it is the carrier force itself.
While other classes of ships have similar issues, the problem is most acute in the carriers.
It may be a surprise to some, but to maintain one ship deployed on station requires a minimum of three actual ships (four if sustained combat operations are underway, as they are now).
One ship will be deployed to the theater of war and conducting combat operations; one ship will be returning from deployment to begin crew rest and rehabilitation and upkeep; a third will have completed training and pre deployment exercises and returning to the theater of war to relieve the on-station ship. And a fourth ship will be in an extended period of maintenance and overhaul in a shipyard.
The U.S. has two carriers conducting combat operations in the Arabian Sea. By the calculus above, that would mean eight actual aircraft carriers would be required to sustain this operation.
But the U.S. Navy has only 11 aircraft carriers total (not including vessels like LHAs that carry deployed Marine forces).
The commitment to sustain the above operations and maintain presence in the western Pacific and European waters (e.g., Mediterranean Sea) means that deployments will grow longer; material conditions of the ships will degrade requiring extensive and more frequent maintenance periods; and crew endurance and morale will erode.
(Good luck to the Navy in its personnel recruiting and retention efforts with the above conditions).
The new multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers of the Ford class are being built to replace the aging Nimitz class carriers – even with some extensions of service, the goal is to maintain 11 aircraft carriers.
This for a platform whose obsolescence will be terribly obvious when the first hypersonic ballistic or cruise missile strikes a carrier and leaves a burning mass of steel and thousands of dead sailors in some ocean.
Until then, the crew of the USS Lincoln – or the carrier coming to replace it – will continue to suffer from inadequate food.
(Don’t believe any forthcoming photos that show the crew wolfing down piles of food that accompany the visit of some flag officer – that will be temporary as it’s not sustainable).
And when the crew of the USS Lincoln finally returns to San Diego, the misery will continue.
There will be divorces; marital strife and domestic abuse; sailors going AWOL and deserting; increased discipline problems with too much drinking; drug abuse; and more suicides as sailors look for ways out from having to return to sea.
For all they will suffer having volunteered their service to the country, I damn the entire chain of command that sent them there in a misguided and unnecessary war, and then abandoned them in terms of their mental and physical health.
The leaders the sailors serve are not worthy of them.
