How the Tragic Sinking of Two Nuclear Submarines Transformed the U.S. Navy

[rangerrebew]

 

September 27, 2020

How the Tragic Sinking of Two Nuclear Submarines Transformed the U.S. Navy

That the Thresher and Scorpion crews were lost at sea is a tragedy. That the U.S. Navy learned from the disasters and made itself better means they did not die in vain. Machiavelli would nod knowingly at the institutional inertia that preceded the accidents—and salute the learning process that followed.
by James Holmes

Cataclysm begets change. It disrupts the inertia to which human beings and their institutions are prone. Oftentimes nothing less will do. As Niccolò Machiavelli pointed out centuries ago, individuals find it hard to change with the times and thus risk being left behind. Organizations are bodies made up of individuals allergic to change. Those who found and preside over institutions write their worldviews into standard routine. Institutional culture is intractable as a consequence. It takes a powerful jolt of some sort—defeat in the case of an armed service, or some other trauma of like magnitude—to set overdue reforms in motion.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-tragic-sinking-two-nuclear-submarines-transformed-us-navy-169720

[PeteS in CA]

Sounds like early SSNs were similar to the Century Series fighters in the sense that they were pushing envelopes of things known and understood and raised consequent issues.