An Interesting Case Study in Readiness

This article from Phil Ewing on the Insurv prep for USS San Jacinto (CG 56) is interesting. Several parts to highlight, which I'll touch one at a time.

For the Norfolk, Va.-based cruiser San Jacinto, it took the ship’s company, plus as many as 87 extra people from 16 commands working as much as three months in advance, to set the ship up for its material inspection by the Board of Inspection and Survey. A Navy message detailing those arrangements, written by the cruiser’s commander, Capt. John Cordle, made clear that without the extra help, San Jacinto would have failed.

“Bottom line: The maintenance community is not currently structured and the business practices do not currently support the large volume of work which inevitably must take place to prepare a ship for InSurv,” said the message, obtained by Navy Times. “The significant labor pool which rallied in support of SJA contributed greatly to preparations for the M.I. Without this additional manpower SJA would not have been ready for the M.I.”

This is the manpower issue.

According to Cordle’s message, cruisers today have about 44 fewer sailors than before the onset of “optimal manning.” And because San Jacinto had recently come back from a deployment, its ship’s company was even smaller, Butler said.

He didn’t have an exact number of the deficit in the ship’s crew, but generally the dip can be as many as 20 people.

"Optimal Manning" needs to focus on what is optimal to keep the material condition of ships fit to fight. If ships are not in condition to pass Inserv, then your manpower configuration is not optimal. There is a debate between shipbuilding and readiness here that deserves a lot of attention by Congress.

Senator Webb has been all over this issue lately, one can bet this Navy Times article is on his desk ready for the next hearing in the Senate. This will come up again.

The cruiser San Jacinto needed help from 16 commands throughout Naval Station Norfolk, Va., to get ready for its inspection. The commands that shared people and the number of sailors they gave, from 30 to 90 days before the inspection:

Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, 4; carrier Enterprise, 4; cruisers Leyte Gulf, 1; Monterey, 1; Vella Gulf, 2; destroyers Bulkeley, 1; Gravely, 10 people per day for 90 days; Jason Dunham, 10 people per day for two weeks; Ramage, 1; Roosevelt, 1; dock landing ship Carter Hall, 2; amphibious assault ship Nassau, 1; Cruiser Class Squadron, 3; Destroyer Class Squadron, 10 people per day for 90 days; Transient Personnel Unit Norfolk, 10 people per day for 90 days; Navy Reserve: 26 sailors for a total of 511 workdays.

It is unclear where this information reported by the Navy Times comes from, but if it is from Capt. John Cordle in his report, then that guy has earned a beer. It is basically an accounting of the mess he found himself leading up to the inspection, and a list of rabbits he pulled out of the magic hat to get his ship ready for successful inspection.

He shouldn't have been in this situation though. The Navy may have found a magic formula to stabilize shipbuilding costs for the near term, but this story reminds us that the magic formula to fix the maintenance issues is yet to be found. Clearly a bit of realism in the "optimal manning" discussion is part of the yet to be determined magic formula.

For the record, this is yet another reason why moving quickly to build a bunch of Littoral Combat Ships is a recipe for disaster. That ship class has two undermanned crews and an untested maintenance plan, or what I would call a perfect brew for a future dumpster fire.