  | Ledger-StarBuildup woes buildNorfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, VABy JACK KESTNERLedger-Star Military Writer |
| (Approximately) Friday, April 14, 1972 - NORFOLK: The guys with permanent headaches that two Alka-Seltzer just won’t cure are the ‘schedulers’ at Atlantic Fleet headquarters.
To them has gone the job of tearing up ship schedules extending over a period of many months, then drawing them up all over again – thanks to President Nixon’s decision to build up a massive sea and air armada off Vietnam. A least six Atlantic Fleet ships left for Vietnam this week. “This unscheduled deployment will be affecting overhaul schedules for the next couple of years,” a senior Norfolk officer commented. It stands to reason that when the fleet commander was faced with the requirement of providing specific augmentation to the Pacific Fleet, he looked around to see what was available. And what was available – on such short notice – necessarily consisted of ships, which had been scheduled for other duties in the immediate future. When these were committed to Vietnam, the holes they left in deployment schedules had to be plugged – and that’s where the headaches have come from. To fill the holes, the schedulers had to work with ships that were either facing other assignments or else had to be brought up to the level of readiness of those they were replacing. To compound the problem, the schedulers’ options have been sharply reduced by a wholesale mothballing. From 410 ships in 1970, the Atlantic Fleet will have been reduced to 347 by this July 1 – a reduction of over 115 per cent. Today, the Atlantic Fleet’s “ budget” of ships is just as tight as the budget of a workman who looks in horror at his Phase I frozen paycheck as he watches the spiraling costs of Phase II. The workman sits down with his chief of staff – er, his wife – and, by pinching here and squeezing there, they decide that they might, just might, make it until next payday. Then the car grinds up its transmission, or the roof springs a bad leak, or Junior breaks his arm. The workman has a degree of flexibility – through a bank loan, or a charge card, or deferred payments. Not so the Navy. There are just so many ships to go around for just so many jobs, and that’s it. Period. Another factor that necessarily entered the selection of ships to be sent to Vietnam was the nature of the requirements there. Ships operating in the Gulf of Tonkin have two prime assignments – either operating or supporting carrier aircraft, or else bombarding targets ashore. The three ships which left Norfolk this week will probably do both. Obviously, the nine eight-inch guns of the Newport News will be directed ashore, as probably will be the five-inch guns of the destroyer Mullinnix (the destroyer is one of the top guns of the fleet). On the other hand, the sophisticated equipment aboard the guided missile frigate Biddle will probably be utilized in the same fashion it was during her last two deployments. During her deployment in 1968, the Biddle relieved the cruiser Chicago as the “air controller” of the area – using long-range radar and computers that comprise her Naval Tactical Data System to keep tabs on all aircraft. |
GMG3 John Toth and FTG3 Jerry Baker
14 April 1972, Enroute to Vietnam