How Not to Convert an Elite Branch Into an Underwater Bus service

Will the U.S. continue to normalize our once elite submarine service? Here is how Australia's RAN is managing, so far, after introducing women to fill a manpower shortage from 5 years ago:

21 Feb, 2011- The Canberra Times - Navy falling short on submarine workforce target

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The navy is still one submarine crew short of the Australian Defence Force's manpower target for the submersible fleet, a Defence spokesman says. [T]he navy currently only has crews for three of the six Collins Class boats. [ed. THAT'S ONLY 50% !!!]

''Navy's submarine target is four submarines crewed and in various stages of their routine operating, maintenance and training cycles,'' a Defence spokesman said. ...''For the period January 1 to June 30, 2010, HMAS Collins, Waller and Dechaineux were fully operational with a full crew complement and capable of completing unit ready days.''

Obviously, if young Australian men actually believed their submarine service was still a very manly and elite vocation, more would apply and remain. Rather than lowering entrance standards while raising incentive pay, however, the RAN and US sub forces should have been raising physical and psychological entry scores required for service entry instead of embracing less demanding norms traditionally acceptable for surface warfare volunteers.

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As M.E. had cautioned long ago, turning back from lowered standards is a prescription for long term recovery efforts.

Once open, the Pandora box of female service is not only problematic on subs, its hard to get closed again. - M.E., Updating Submarine Retention andRecruiting in a Job That Females Now Do , September 11, 2008

Submarines are always silent and strange.