Time is our critical resource now. The Navy knows that we have a few scant years before we face major risk for an invasion of Taiwan. In the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) headquarters in San Diego, countdown clocks on the wall measure the days before mid-2027 arrives. The force is in a dead sprint, not a marathon – and we need to throw off excess weight.
To meet the challenge of war with China, the surface force has been driving hard towards more tactical competence. New equipment is rapidly hitting the fleet. New simulators are being built around the world. New cohorts of Warfare Tactics Instructors (WTIs) are graduating. SMWDC is even expanding the Surface Warfare Combat Training Continuum (SWCTC) to boost and standardize tactical knowledge across the surface force.
All of this looks good on paper. But when these efforts reach the ships, they collide with the tight schedules of sailors who count the hours in the day and often come up short. Sailors already work an average of 88.3 hours a week while underway. Where will the time for these warfighting reforms come from?
If sailors are already fully occupied and their schedules are overflowing, it hardly matters how good the new simulators or WTIs are. The present system of time allocation in the surface fleet is not a deliberate product of a warfighting-centric focus, but rather an unchecked process of creeping administrative overload. When new tacticians and training tools hit the fleet, they are eclipsed and diluted by a vast array of miscellaneous requirements. The leaders of the surface force must launch an effort to systematically protect time for tactics by aggressively pruning other requirements, or else these new efforts will fall short.
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