Optimal Manning Still Lives

I think everyone will remember this Navy Times article which at the time, was celebrated as great news.

The surface Navy’s optimal manning experiment is over, the Navy’s No. 2 officer declared in a speech before the Surface Navy Association’s national symposium on Tuesday.

“We’re going to effectively migrate, reconstitute in a way, the surface fleet afloat,” Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told the audience of about 200 contractors, sailors and officers. “We’ve just taken too much risk in things like optimal manning and others and that’s pretty well documented.”

Greenert’s comments come less than a week after Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the Navy plans to return 6,000 personnel to sea and operational support jobs. This largely followed the Balisle report, a panel of senior active and retired officers that recommended adding 6,500 billets back to ships and maintenance facilities.

I went back and looked at the video of ADM Jonathan Greenert's presentation put up by Surface Navy Association and I did not find where he said this, so maybe it was in a different speech?

What we are learning is that there is some fine print, because while the Fleet Review Panel did recommend adding 6,500 billets back to ships, the number 6,000 that is quoted in the article is misleading. The actual number of billets returning to the fleet is only 2,200, while the rest of the 6,000 mentioned in the article will be for ships in the FYDP. In San Diego, Bob Work used the numbers 2,200 for fleet reconstitution billets and 3,900 for the FYDP billets.

That graph in this post is from the Balisle Report to illustrate the number of billets that have been reduced as a result of the optimal manning experiment, and it breaks down billets by ship type and configuration. If you do the math, you'll find that the 2,200 billets returning to the fleet are not even enough to replace the total billets lost in just the Arleigh Burke class - never mind the rest of the fleet.

It is not accurate to say that the optimal manning experiment is over, as the Navy Times article implies based on comments sourced to ADM Greenert, what is accurate to say is that the use of the phrase "optimal manning" is over.

2,200 billets returned to the fleet / 6500 billets recommended by the Balisle Report suggests that the Balisle Report resulted in a ~33% increase in fleet maintenance billets. While I am sure that will have a positive impact on the maintenance of the fleet, I think it also suggests it is way too early for the Navy to suggest they have solved addressed the maintenance challenges the Balisle Report revealed.

Only time will tell.