[treetoppin]

Shout out to a fellow Coastie.

I think what I learned from my superiors is that it doesnt matter so much what system is used for risk assessment, but whether a conversation about risk was had in a meaningful way. Sometimes quantification helps this, where complex systems can be analyzed and the consequences assessed. Usually if you are going to do that it has to happen well in advance of an operation. Othertimes the desire to get a number leads to a real ham fisted attempt to "quantify" things like how fatigued the crew is on a scale of 1-10, or to rate the environmental conditions. When the GAR model, which stands for Green - Amber - Red, was used to facilitate an honest conversation about how people felt about an operation as opposed to just checking a box so that it could be put in the logs. When I saw it being used as the former it absolutely made things safer, but that was very dependent on the attitude of those participating.

[cconover]

Agreed, and a more succinct way of saying what I was getting at. Attempts to quantify inherently subjective attempts aren't very productive in their own right. What matters far more is having a substantive conversation about risk, and work to promote a culture of open and honest communication.

Semper P

[Aeolun]

If you want to know how tired your crew is, wouldn't it suffice to pluck a random few of deck and ask them if they're tired as fuck?

[mrob]

How would you make them answer truthfully? Admitting to being tired either means you're showing personal weakness, or you're calling your superiors incompetent at scheduling. Neither possibility sounds good for your career. I think it would be better to measure reaction times, eg. by making them catch a falling ruler immediately after it's dropped and seeing how far it falls.

[toopok4k3]

This is why good leaders create an environment where you can be honest about such things. You are basically talking about an inhumane system led by fear. Then again we are talking about the navy here...

[cconover]

This is part of the reason why they institute fatigue standards, to try to keep people from being over tired and still working, which led to people being hurt.

[treetoppin]

The hard part is that no one wants to admit that they are tired. Everyone wants to be "that guy" or "that girl" who is always ready to go. After all, most people Ive met in the military have a hard time putting themselves to bed because they have the next watch when its 0200 and we're pulling migrants off rafts or running helicopter ops to interdict $100 million worth of cocaine. During lots of operations you will have a lot of the crew stood up to run things, so balancing crew fatigue with surge operations is no trivial task. The SWO community could take a lot of pointers from the aviation folks - they are way better about making sure people get mandatory rest.