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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Are Warships Over-Manned?
Message-ID: <1990Dec3.051137.3342@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 3 Dec 90 05:11:37 GMT
References: <1990Nov29.004354.21100@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl)
>What are all those men doing?  The ships seem grossly over-manned for their
>capabilities...

I don't know a definitive answer, but I know two or three factors that
contribute.  One is that navies tend to distrust automation (US submarines
spend most of their time holding a specific speed, heading, and depth...
on *manual* control, not even a servomechanism autopilot).  Another is
that they have to be capable of continuing effective combat even if all
the wonderful electronic gizmos break.  A third is that the automation
they already have takes a *lot* of maintenance.

>Yes, I know you may need fire fighting and damage control, but in battle
>you can call on the other two shifts to perform these duties...

What if the ship is on combat alert for several days running?  Ships,
unlike aircraft, seldom get a chance to withdraw to a known-safe area
for a rest every day.

>Most of the time, the ship will not be in battle.

Ship design is driven by the worst case, not by "most of the time".
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry


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