Roughead Discusses Reducing the Number of Sailors on Warships

In general we see both sides of the primary argument, and we think it is an interesting discussion. We don't necessarily agree or disagree on the issue for the same reasons as most regarding reductions in sailors though. Roughead wants to reduce crew sizes on warships, and we understand his reason is budgetary in nature.

“There’s no question that crew sizes have got to come down,” he said. “We, frankly, are not aggressive enough in employing the technologies that allow us to take people off ships. It’s largely a cultural thing we’ve got to break through ... and we can do it, I’m confident.”

Roughead said he thought smaller crew sizes were a top feature on the Navy’s new generation of warships, including the Zumwalt-class destroyers — which, although they’re the Navy’s largest new surface combatants since World War II, have a projected crew of 142 — and the littoral combat ships, which will be crewed by 40 sailors who’ll be given multiple jobs.

Roughead said he didn’t have specific goals yet for how much he’d like to reduce crew sizes on so-called “legacy ships” that the Navy plans to upgrade, but he said “my objective will be get it down to the number that allows us to maintain combat effectiveness and provide for the safety and security of the ship.”

“In the past, we’ve had some initiatives underway but they had a hard time taking through,” Roughead said. “In my tenure, I intend to be a little on the bold side.”

Despite the fact his reasoning is driven primarily by the bean counters, there really is an interesting 'other' discussion with this issue. In general we agree with both sides of the argument, and don't pick sides based on those two camps. We simply do not have evidence, other than what history tells us, regarding the number of sailors required to support damage control efforts.

In favor of reducing crew sizes is the need for the Navy to save money. There is a camp within the Navy that believes damage control equipment has become robust enough to be effective in wartime, and apparently damage control and survivability are not sacrificed by large reductions in crew sizes. Against the reduction of crew sizes are reminders of past experiences where damage control required many, many continuous difficult hours by very large crews, even on smaller frigates, to contain damage and save ships from sinking. Both the USS Stark (FFG 31) and USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) were saved due to valiant damage control efforts by the 200+ sailors and officers.

In Bradley Peniston's book No Higher Honor the damage control efforts of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) is well chronicled. The story describes how over 200 officers and sailors worked for 18 straight hours to keep the ship from sinking after hitting a mine in the Gulf. The argument of those against the reduction of crew sizes on warships asks an important question, how can ships without sailors to operate in shifts during damage control operations hope to keep a ship from sinking after taking serious damage? In what way has technology improved so much, at a time when armor on ships has been reduced considerably, that a ships survivability is not hampered greatly by the reduction of crews?

I think the entire damage control debate is interesting, but it is not my primary consideration when I ponder the decision by the Navy to reduce the number of sailors on ships.

If we assume that damage control and fire extinguishing technologies are vastly improved today, robust enough to sustain substantial damage and remain operational, and a reduced number of crew doesn't effect survivability of modern US Navy warships, then we believe the Navy is absolutely doing the right thing by reducing the number of sailors on warships. We believe the Navy has figured out that they do not require large numbers of sailors to fight a war at sea with modern technology. Under those conditions we agree completely with Roughead that naval warfare has become an exercise in the utilization and application of technology to strike the enemy effectively first, and manpower is not a primary consideration for meeting those conditions if sailors are not required for damage control.

However, as we review the Maritime Strategy and apply the lessons of peacemaking operations including those we are learning from the Marines, we are constantly reminded that for peacemaking operations manpower is a hard requirement. We observe a constant in modern warfare, on land and at sea, that unmanned systems are force enablers for warfighter operations. We also observe another constant, on land and at sea, that manpower is the force enabler for peacemaking operations.

As Network Centric Warfare in the present and future envisions distributed unmanned platforms dispersed to perform fleet scouting operations in wartime to reduce the time in the C2 kill chain, we believe that under a peacetime Maritime Strategy, if it is to be successfully executed, it will ultimately be the distribution and utilization of manned platforms to establish the social presence for establishing stability and security in troubled regions.

With the reduction of sailors on warships, we observe that the US Navy intends to increase distribution through unmanned systems via platforms like the Littoral Combat Ship. We believe that such a plan ultimately will not be as effective as currently envisioned, because it fails to increase the human element required for peacemaking operations. Presence is determined by interaction between local populations and the Navy, and not determined by the interaction of a robotic system and the local population. When it is all said and done, the presence of an unmanned system can not substitute for sailors in peacetime operations, as it cannot deliver the support and assistance that is outlined as guidance in the Maritime Strategy. In this regard, we believe the assumed increase to capability offered by unmanned systems is flawed in its desired effect, because while it will add tremendous capability to warfighting, a robotic system cannot substitute for the sailor in peacemaking.

This is why we believe large motherships and small surface combatants is a better model under the Navy's Maritime Strategy than small motherships (LCS) and large surface combatants (DDG-1000). As unmanned networks will enable the warfighter in the future, we believe the development of large, distributed manned networks at sea is the holy grail of peacemaking operations in the future. Due to the nature of the environment at sea, we acknowledge that such a network will be defined by force structure, which is also why the need for small, inexpensive fast manned platforms remains a requirement for US Naval forces today under the Maritime Strategy. In that way, we believe it is fair to suggest Streetfighter as a maritime strategic concept for fleet constitution is the desired force structure for peacemaking operations in the future.

Julian Corbett believed the object of naval warfare "must always be directly or indirectly either to secure the command of the sea or to prevent the enemy from securing it." Corbett was specifically discussing the strategic objective of a fleet for warfighting. In that spirit we observe the strategic peacemaking requirement as outlined in the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower to be the establishment of cooperative processes that mitigates the disruption of cooperative command of the sea to promote peacetime commerce. As part of a circular theory of maritime strategy that accounts for both warfighting and peacemaking. the strategic peacemaker responsibility for the Navy exists both prior to warfare (cooperative partnerships) and after warfare (reconstitution of commerce and security), also described as the periods of time absent warfare. We observe this strategic approach to peacemaking relies upon the application of warfighter capabilities to regain command of the sea when command is lost.

In other words, while manpower may not be required to secure command of the sea or prevent the enemy from securing it, manpower will be a critical part of the requirement within the context of the maritime strategy for periods where command of the sea is assured, which ironically defines the vast majority of the operational time of the US Navy today.

We observe the Interaction Patrols (IPATS) that integrate the use of a landing craft utility (LCU) with air assets, with recent exercises in both the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, are utilizing sailors to increase the distribution of a manned presence for VBSS operations as part of the development of these manned network theories for peacemaking operations. Due to these developments, we have a lot of faith that while the crew reduction issues remain controversial for damage control discussions, ultimately the Navy appears to realize the value of sailors to executing the Maritime Strategy. We remain interested in observing as the crew size debate continues, but rather than the damage control debate we know many have concerns about, we are more curious to see how the Navy develops its manpower strategy in the context of fleet constitution and Maritime Strategy, with the strategic execution approach, not the fleet constitution approach, being the most relevant budgetary consideration in our opinion.