Naval Air: <b>May 27, 2005</b>

May 27, 2005

The United States and Britain are taking a closer look at how they design their new aircraft carriers (and warships in general). Analysis of lifecycle costs of warships (what it costs to run the ship over all the years it is in service) indicates that, on average, for each sailor eliminated from the crew, the total savings would be over two million dollars. By questioning all work practices on warships, and looking at how civilian ships have reduced their crew size over the past half century, many possible crew reduction opportunities have been found. And thats without eliminating jobs that are necessary for warships (like damage control, and manning many systems for high alert, and combat, situations.) Some recommendations were pretty obvious, like installing conveyers to help move supplies when ships are replenished at sea, or even when in port. Many maintenance tasks can be eliminated by using materials that require less effort to keep clean, and are just as safe as those used in the past. Its also been noted that many maintenance tasks can be left for civilians to do when the ship is in port. The navy has also not kept up on automation. The navy still has sailors standing watch to oversee equipment that, with the addition of some sensors, can be monitored from a central location. If there is a problem, a repair team can be sent. But in the meantime, thousands of man hours a week are saved, and another few dozen sailors are not needed. Another angle is removing a lot of administrative jobs from the ship altogether. All warships are connected, via satellite, to military networks. So many sailors can stay ashore, and do their work without ever going near the ship. Some sailors have long noted that their administrative jobs aboard a carrier rarely brought them in touch with the people they were serving. Carriers have phones and email. Why use it aboard ship when you can use it from some (much cheaper) shore location? Moreover, many of these admin jobs can be done, more cheaply, by civilians. A crew of 4,000 sailors to run a carrier are now a thing of the past, with new crew size being cut to almost half that number. Thats a lifecycle savings of over four billion dollars for sailors alone, not to mention the savings in being able to use the now empty crew spaces for other things (equipment, aviation fuel, bombs, or just smaller ships in general.)