[EliRivers]

There is an enormous amount of work to do on warships (in my experience); the following doesn't apply everywhere always, but all of it applies sometimes and some of it applies all the time.

If you're in engineering, kit is constantly breaking and it is never all working; you'll never catch up, so it's just a question of what you decide to leave broken right now and what you need to fix. The things that are working need constant attention to make sure they stay working; you'll never get them all checked, so there's always something that definitely needs checking really quite soon.

In warfare branch(es), as in all branches, the manning situation is never right; there are always gapped billets, requiring other people who don't quite have the right skills and experience having to share that extra workload amongst themselves and to cover extra watches. Going to defence watches or the like (six on, six off, or even four on, four off) is a permanent mindfuck that leaves everyone as a kind of zombie, skating through on routine.

The kit is often old, and it's all pretty custom, and so much of it is painfully delicate. This ship doesn't like warm water, that ship has a habit of not being able to power the radar all the time, damn comms constantly up and down. With relatively new classes of ship, every one of the first dozen is basically an experiment, so the new kit refuses to work properly with each other, or maybe just plain at all, and the original purpose the ship was designed for is long gone and what was a cold water submarine hunter meant to last a week on its own before being back in port is now a warm water patrol vessel out for months at a time, constantly stressing systems that were meant to have a steady supply of cold water cooling and were never meant to be active for weeks at a time.

Every ship and crew will habitually be asked to do more, with less. Harmony time vanishes, billets get gapped, refits get put off, maintenance cycles become less frequent. It stops when ships basically cease to function.

Sometimes it's a wonder they don't sink upon leaving harbour :)

[jdmichal]

At the risk of imaginary internet points for being too reddit-like, this is my favorite software engineering GIF and is appropriate here:

https://tenor.com/view/shipit-revert-crash-gif-4770661

EDIT: Here's an article with a full video... Which is basically the same as the GIF:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335331/Dramatic-vid...

[komali2]

What is actually happening during watch? Does that literally mean someone is posted in the modern equivalent of a crow's nest, looking out for ships?

[nradov]

Yes most surface warships have at least four lookouts on every watch to visually look for vessels and other hazards. That system works well as a safety backup for radar as long as they pay attention and communicate effectively.