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From: TSOMMERS@zodiac.rutgers.edu
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Ship Manning
Message-ID: <1990Dec3.051029.3208@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 3 Dec 90 05:10:29 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: TSOMMERS@zodiac.rutgers.edu
>From: crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl)
>Many of the descriptions of warships posted to this group read like:
>
>    2 engines, 4 missle launchers, 1 cannon, 1 radar, 1 sonar, 300 men
>
>What are all those men doing?  The ships seem grossly over-manned for their
>capabilities.  This imbalance appears to worsen as the ship size increases.
>
>I cannot see a need for more than 50 men on a ship, unless it carries
>aircraft (including helicopters).  The jobs I can imagine are:
>
>    commander (whoever is in charge for the shift), helm,
>    weapons control (2), weapons loading (2), radar/sonar operators (2),
>    cook, and janitor

While it is true that a merchant ship can get by with 30-50 men, all
they have to do is sail from point to point, and they rarely stay at sea
for more than a couple of weeks. Naval ships have much more to do, and
can spend months at sea without seeing a port. Not only do they have to
operate their weapons and sensors, they also have to be able to fix and
maintain lots of equipment, to communicate 24 hrs a day (both with the
shore and with other ships in company), to communicate internally, to
treat the sick and wounded, to feed a large crew, to run the engines,
and, a not inconsiderable matter, replace casualties. Not to mention the
need for administrators, to keep personnel and pay records and to handle
the routine business of the ship (all of which is handled by the home
office of a merchant ship, or by the master or pursor).

The minimum bridge watch consists of:
	Officer of the Deck,
	Junior OOD,
	Helm,
	Lee helm (who transmits orders to the engine room),
	Quartermaster of the Watch (who keeps the log and charts),
	Boatswain's Mate of the Watch,
	Messenger of the Watch,
	Phone Talker (for interior communication),
for a total of 8.

In CIC you'll have the Tactical Action Officer, a supervisor or two, EW
operators, sonar operators, radar operators, dead-reckoning-trace
operator, phone talkers and assorted others.

There will be a couple of signalmen on the signal bridge, for visual
communication.

In radio there will be 4 or 5 men on watch (a supervisor, fleet
broadcast operator, teletype operators, traffic handlers, radio
operators, etc.).

And so on throughout the ship. This for a destroyer type. 

Even with the large crew, no one is underworked, 12-14 hour days being
the norm. An 8-hour day is almost like a day off.

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

It's true that not much time is spent in battle, but you have to be
ready to fight any time. You can't ask the enemy to wait while you steam
back to base to pick up some more crewmen.

Also, at General Quarters, there are no spare men to fight the odd fire.
During normal steaming watches, not every space or piece of equipment is
manned; at GQ they must be. For instance, in radio, instead of one guy
handling all the transmitters and receivers, there will be one or two
guys in each transmitter room and others manning the receivers; instead
of one man watching several tty circuits, each will be manned
separately, and so on. 

>The benefits of smaller crews (for the same capability) are substantial.
>
>- There are fewer men between the captain and the hardware.
>    - The command structure should react faster.
> ...
>Are current ships over-manned? If ships are not over-manned today, can we
>reduce the manpower requirements for future warships through automation and
>proper systems design?

The FFG-7 class was designed with such considerations in mind. It has a
crew of about 190, whereas the earlier Knox and Garcia classes require
about 250.


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