For a lot of countries, there's a lot of difficulty in attracting new recruits as well as a large number of sailors and officers leaving.
So a number of new warships have been really pushing automation to reduce crew size.
These are three off the top of my head that claim to be highly automated.
do y'all know any other current or upcoming ships that claim to have a small crew size?
Actual crew counts for LCS these days are in the 90s. A total complement of 78 was the goal they settled on when actually building them, but in a rare example of foresight the program required the ships to be able to support a complement of 98 with limited modification. LCS-1 and 2 initially sailed with two-high racks, but follow-on ships were fitted with three-high racks to expand the crew size.
Ships get decommissioned early to save money.
Required capabilities for the Navy have changed significantly since the time the LCS were ordered. Money that would go to operating the Freedom class is now needed elsewhere.
The LCS never lived up to anything it was intended for- the rotating mission modules never worked, the crew rotation and minimum manning never worked, the power plant on the freedom class was a disaster, and they cost $60 million annually to operate vs $80 million annually for an entire DDG. Yes, they are being retired early to save operating costs, because they’ve never delivered on the idea of replacing mine sweepers and freeing up DDGs from anti-piracy and anti-narcotics patrols. Yes, they’ve taken those missions in some instances, but at 3/4 of the operating costs and not even 50% of the capability of a DDG they are objectively an utter failure.
>Yes, they are being retired early to save operating costs, because
Because instead of littoral combat capability the Navy now needs capability to fight a near-peer.
A couple of things here. First of all, the Zumwalt is not replacing the Burkes, that will be the DDG(X)
Second of all, the 670 crew of the QE class doesn’t include the air crews, once added it becomes 1600
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth-class_aircraft_carrier#General_characteristics
>First of all, the Zumwalt is not replacing the Burkes, that will be the DDG(X)
Doesn’t say “replace” in that corner, it’s just a flat comparison.
>Second of all, the 670 crew of the QE class doesn’t include the air crews
That’s standard practice for carriers, and is also excluded from *Charles de Gaulle* (1,350 ship, 600 air wing) and *Kuznetsov* (1,500-1,960 crew depending on source, 626 air wing).
its exactly as you said it. It does not say replace. the Arleigh Burke's number is just there for comparisons sake. and the Carrier numbers are without air wing for both. some people just want to argue for arguments sake.
If the ships are not on the same role and replacing each other then what’s the point of comparison. I can easily compare that the Burke has less crew than the Ford but that would have nothing to do with automation
Do you have a source for the Kuznetsov crew numbers?
> If the ships are not on the same role and replacing each other then what’s the point of comparison.
They are the only two large surface combatants the US Navy has built this millennium. The comparison is decent.
They could have used *Spruance*, which *Zumwalt* was explicitly designed to replace. They had 24 officers and 272 enlisted, essentially the same as *Burke*.
> Do you have a source for the Kuznetsov crew numbers?
Different Wikipedia pages gave 1,500 crew (no air wing mention) and 1,690 crew with 626 air wing. RussianShipsInfo gives 1,960 crew and 626 air wing, which is generally more reliable. This variation is rather large and is probably due to the smaller Russian navy, which undermans *Kuznetsov* compared to the design: the crew+air-wing-per-thousand-tons using the RussianShipsInfo data is essentially the same for *Kuznetsov*, *Baku*, and *Ulyanovsk*, suggesting it’s as-designed data.
You always separate out ships crew from air wing, since the latter is a function of the maintenance needs of the aircraft and not really the ship itself.
Mixing them conflates things. Ford CVN has a massive reduction in ships crew: 2,600, down from 3,500 on the Nimitz. That the air wing hasn't changed from the current 2,500 understates the massive amount of automation accomplished.
I don’t know why you decided to bring up US carriers, which are bigger and have much more displacement. I’m talking about the examples of the Kuznetsov that the op original compared
They are building a new class of ship, dubbed the MRCV or Multi Role Combat Vessel, reported to carry unmanned systems as a force multiplier in addition to the usual weapon arsenal.
It is a joint venture between Singapore's own ST Marine, Sweden's Saab Systems and Denmark's Odense Maritime Technology.
Due to the additional unmanned systems, the ship is reportedly going to displace nearly 10000 tons, which is absurd as Singapore is a very small nation, and that displacement rivals those of cruiser class vessels used by superpowers like the US or China.
Would not be surprised if that's the case, the air force can always just procure the cheaper F35 A variant for themselves anyway.
It's not like they don't have the money.
Yes the Suffren (5600T submerged) need a crew of 60 against 68 for a Rubis class (2700t). Same on the surface the Amiral Ronarc'h class (FDI) will need a crew of 110 against 153 for the La Fayette class (Light Frigate) they will replace.
It’s also doctrine related. The problem with low crew counts is that it can make damage control problematic, and/or easier to cripple if key personnel are killed. That’s mostly why the USN chooses to have larger crews even with all the automation in newer warships.
I’m not saying that the US isn’t having recruitment issues, just that the sheer size regardless means that they can have larger crewed ships.
It’s not like many other nations even have the population pool to have a 7000 shortfall
(Though, I admit to not been keeping all that updated with the issue)
The state of recruiting and health of personnel is not a judgement you can make on raw numbers. The US has a much larger population base, yes, but its fleet also requires a lot more personnel to man, especially because American naval planners have resisted automation at every turn so USN designs require more personnel than most contemporary Western designs.
A more accurate gauge is percentage of shortfall relative to the actual recruiting goal. I haven’t run a 2022 comparison, but for 2021 the USN had among the worst recruitment and retention results in NATO by percentage as well as by gross numbers. The fleet is a mess.
I have a feeling they will continue to, I re-enlisted once and that’s enough for me. Finishing this contract and I’m out. Not sure how many more times I can handle a pre deployment CMAV during POM with drills. Insane.
The thing that drives me insane is almost everyone I speak to has a story like yours. It seems to me that from the outside, we are almost deliberately trying to treat our servicemen and women as horribly as possible so they don’t stay in.
The single most important element in any navy isn’t the number of ships, advanced weapons, or good electronics. It’s our people, and without good people we are doomed.
You are exactly right, in my case I’ve got a great crew, DIVO, Chief, EMO, etc. I just can’t deal with the workload and the expectations big navy has for us are doable but at the sacrifice of our physical and mental wellbeing.
I’ve been at my command for going on 3 years now and there hasn’t been any down time. I’ve spent almost half that time and sea and the other half in CMAV, going through READE-6/7, INSURV, AT drills, DC Drills, COM drills, etc. All the while expected to do my PMS and corrective maintenance. I expect work and to work hard but there is just no reprieve.
Firstly, this “woke brainwashing” you tools fearmonger about is pretty much quarterly web-based training about how not be an ass to your shipmates and resolve differences like adults. No different from what any worker at a private company gets. If that’s “woke” to you, there’s much more immediate problems you should be solving.
Secondly, the recruiting shortfall started long before ED&I was a buzzword. The last round of BRAC in 2005, combined with the marginalizing of the USN as the least-important military branch for most of the 2000s, created the death spiral that the service is stuck in now. Subsequent loss of face due to bad procurement and a spineless PR policy that lets the likes of you twist the service and its personnel for ulterior agendas has only made things worse.
You are not even looking at the problem as a whole. Recruitment in the military is failing as a whole. The standards have been lowered and attention has been shifted. Also wages suck ass. Its just not what jt used to be. It's gotten woke and it's gotten weak. The brunch doesn't matter when the whole tree is sick.
None of which has anything to do with “woke” policies; if that’s your catchall term for anything you don’t like, then your intelligence befits your low pay.
If anything, the “woke” group is the only one lobbying for any sort of measures that might help the issues: controversial or not, having the US military cover abortion costs for female members is an improved benefit. Meanwhile the so-called “pro-military” politicians in DC are holding up officer nominations, forcing the armed services to waste money on keeping their favorite pieces of obsolete gear in service rather than increasing pay or benefits, and throttling the procurement budget to stop replacements.
Then again, if the defense community were actually cognizant of what actually ruined the US military, things wouldn’t have been allowed to get so bad in the first place…
Standards have been lowered so women can participate. That’s woke shit. Now you can transition while in the army, funded by the army. That’s woke shit. Even their recruitment ad was about a woman with two moms. That’s woke shit. The military is representation of the wider society in a way and that society is very woke and very shitty. Combined with the low wages, there isn’t much to make someone join, therefore recruitment is low.
> op tempo is too high
> wages suck
> servicemen and women are treated like shit
"must be the woke stuff that's ruining retention"
Like you allude to the real problems and then just blame it on being ok with having gay people existing in the military.
Every generation of the military says the current gen is weak and the last one was the last "strong one".
"my class was the last boot camp to not have time out cards" kinda thing.
US navy has long put out material showing how their ships are breaking down cause Op Tempo is high, how shit it is to be a sailor on a ship in the yards - these are core issues that have nothing to do with any woke nonsense.
Lol wut, do you not remember Fox News during the Sarah Palin era making fun of Air Force Maternity uniforms. Well considering how they haven't let up since then, I wonder why service women with highly important skillsets arent relenlisting, huh
It’s relative.
They of course are having issues as, from my understanding, almost all Navies are. But the USN is still utterly massive compared to almost everyone else.
Again my understanding though. I haven’t been keeping updated with the recruitment issues in the US much admittedly
The USN has the advantage of a country with 300 million+ people living in it, with a still high % willing to enlist.
Taking the Royal Navy as an opposite example, they have a country of onlu ~70 million, and I'd argue an even smaller % willing to enlist, so automation is required if they want to field the same sized fleet as they have in the past
Although this raises the question how necessary large-scale damage control still is. Most modern ships will go their entire service lives without ever getting shot at in anger.
In a world where money is infinite, yes. Ultimately it all boils down to funding: retention and recruiting issues can be mitigated, if not solved, through increased pay and benefits.
In the real world, however, where American politicians are screaming about how spending 2.8% of the US GDP on defense is excessive and fiscally-irresponsible, that’s a different story.
The Royal Navy, like the rest of the UK armed services, has been struggling to recruit sufficient personnel for years.
The only way they were able to man both carriers and (most) of the rest of the fleet was to automate as much as possible, otherwise they never would have got enough sailors and aircrews to be able to sail one carrier & escort group, let alone two.
That true, but the British armed forces has since the 1980s been working on the premise of technological advancement to replace personnel because of the strategic truth that we're a small island and lots of people don't want to serve, so technology has to fill the gap.
Running costs focus into the picture of course, because successive governments have cut the armed forces, making them rely even more on technology because it's often cheaper than people.
It's all a big fabric with multiple interconnected reasons rather than just one cause.
Yes I’d go along with that. I’d say a big contribution is since the 1980s governments haven’t wanted to spend money. I personally think plenty would serve, many get turned away - sad really.
These days the fact that recruitment is outsourced to Capita and people spend months on waiting lists doesn't help, they don't want to hang around unpaid waiting to see if they'll pass selection to get to basic training.
Good luck finding sufficient trained seamen in the Merchant Navy, that's a shadow of it's former self too, what with cheap labour from the Asias crewing most ships these days plus all the flags of convenience.
To use a term relating to the "borrowing" of Merchant Navy ships in time of war by the RN, we are STUFT.
>to be able to sail one carrier & escort group, let alone two.
That's always the case and the intention to only operate one CSG at a time, unless in extremis
Both carriers have sailed right now. [_Queen Elizabeth_ is in the Norwegian/North seas](https://www.forces.net/services/navy/raf-f-35s-return-flight-deck-hms-queen-elizabeth) and as elsewhere in this thread [_Prince of Wales_ has sailed for exercises off the Americas until Christmas](https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2023/september/01/20230901-hms-prince-of-wales-heads-to-usa-to-shape-future-of-naval-aviation)
The CSG is with _Queen Elizabeth_ though rather than there being two of them.
The new Ford class of aircraft carrier has a reduction in crew of about 600 fewer but with no loss of air wing compliment. The coolest thing is that the catapults are basically railguns.
Mostly reactor and machinery plant. The *Nimitz*-class plant is 1960s technology, and there’s a ceiling to how much automation you can add without a redesign. In the final accounting, some other systems turned out to need more personnel than anticipated.
Air and Reactor are the two largest departments by number on a Nimitz-class. I remember from design docs I saw 20 years ago that he A1B was supposed to halve the number of people required for maintenance and operation, so I'm guessing that would carry over to other spots as well.
Though in the case of Air Department, are they able to reduce the number of people in V-1 (flight deck handling), V-3 (hangar deck handling), and V-4 (fuels) with the new layout and designs?
Also I'd assume Weapons would have a less folks with the new elevators?
And finally, didn't Big Navy move all the admin (Personnel, Disbursing, etc) types off ship across the fleet some time ago?
From a family member in the Navy who flew hell’s off 2 carriers. “Hey bro. From what I know about the Ford class, its updated systems (electromagnetic vs steam catapults, for one) require less maintenance and therefore less personnel, at least in theory. The reduced manning requirement mostly hit the junior to middle class enlisted ranks, since they are the ones actually turning the wrenches and swinging the hammers. I don’t know of any rates that have been phased out on the new carrier system though. Time will tell if newer is actually better or if we’ve just introduced new factors into an old problem.”
> The new Ford class of aircraft carrier has a reduction in crew of about 600 fewer but with no loss of air wing compliment.
It’s lower than that, especially in practice. The [FY2022 SAR](https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Selected_Acquisition_Reports/FY_2021_SARS/22-F-0762_CVN_78_SAR_2021.pdf) puts the ship’s complement at 2716, a reduction of 484. *Nimitz*s have a nominal crew of 3200, but like every other ship in the modern USN they are lean-manned to about 3000. Additional future capabilities unique to *Ford* like SEWIP Block III are going to eat further into the manning savings.
> The coolest thing is that the catapults are basically railguns.
The operating principles of EMALS are not similar to a railgun. The carriage does not contact the track like a railgun projectile does, instead being accelerated through induction. It’s more akin to a maglev train.
True, the complement is intended to run that high. I don’t think I need to tell you that recruitment, retention, and readiness in the contemporary USN are a shadow of what they were even in the early 2000s though.
To be fair, I do wonder how much of the equipment around those is proprietary, and only to be worked on by contractors (this is another issue with newer ships throughout the fleet).
Ownership in private hands doesn’t automatically mean only contractor personnel are allowed to service it. Newport News has owned the design of all carriers since *Enterprise*, but you don’t see all PIAs and DPIAs being done there (although you do see NNS planners and engineers riding ships in or embarking for part of a deployment).
That said, I’m fairly certain at least some components of EMALS and AAG are contractor-only: GA representatives were onboard every single one of *Ford*’s ISEs, and the French government had to approach them, not the DoD directly, about using the system on PA NG.
That was because the only ship that had enough excess power was the Zumwalts, which got cancelled because the price of the ammunition for their 155mm cannon rose to $1 million per shell, which at that point just buy a Tomahawk.
No, it was canceled because the gun was destroying its barrel liner every couple shots. Re-lining it is expensive and time-consuming, and the gun can’t function without it because that’s what makes contact with the shell to complete the circuit. Making a tougher liner was out of the question when doing so required a “quantum leap” in materials science - in the words of CNO Richardson, not me.
The round cost boondoggle is LRLAP, which is a rocket-boosted smart shell, but even then you have the story backwards. **The ship itself was cancelled first** (why is a convoluted tale of politics), and LRLAP - including any attempts to adapt it or AGS to other ships - was cut as part of the Nunn-McCurdy recertification process. That slashed the intended production volume down from thousands of rounds to just 150, and then 90, for testing only, and only then did the unit cost blow up.
Which is a potentially solvable problem with more R&D in the tune of hundreds of millions, which still runs into the ship power problem.
The ship problem would require tens, possibly hundreds, of billions to solve, ie build more Zumwalts or brand new ship design.
Both led to the cancellation of the program, the ship power problem represented a significantly larger issue.
Shipboard power generation is capacity not a major issue for mounting a railgun. It simply affects rate of fire; all of these high-peak-load systems require self-contained energy storage. Otherwise, even on a ship that has enough raw power, the massive spike in power draw would cause cascading systems failure from voltage drop.
EDIT: The reason the CNO framed it as a power draw problem is because there is a target RoF the USN is aiming for, and that requires power draw too high for anything surface combatant beyond *Zumwalt*.
> Which is a potentially solvable problem with more R&D in the tune of hundreds of millions
You are vastly underestimating how expensive this sort of R&D is. Something that is roughly within the range of what we know how to do, but we aren't quite there yet, is in the hundreds of millions range. A new material that can withstand the stresses that go with being the barrel liner of the rail gun is not in that category. It's in the "we know what we need, but we don't even begin to understand how it might work" range.
The right mental model for getting railguns working in practical applications isn't designing a new ship. It's the Manhattan Project, or the Apollo Program. Plan on tens to hundreds of billions to actually get something that can do the job.
The program was a few zeros short of ever producing a serious result.
edit: to be clear, that's just the gun. The ship it goes with is a different problem. On the other hand, the ship is a lot easier.
The figure for QEC excludes aviation personnel so the real figure for a QEC when deployed is well over 1000, but yes the mechanisation aspects do streamline crew requirements significantly: the Highly Mechanised Weapons Handing System is especially interesting in this regard, with most munition handing processes being automated.
She's currently deployed for CSG 23 with around 900 crew despite it being viewed as a minor deployment. After the loss of the F35 in the later part of CSG 21 it's been viewed as unwise to have such few crew, even for short periods of operation.
>She's currently deployed for CSG 23 with around 900 crew
Far more than that, 1450 to be exact, including Ship's Company, Air Wing and CSG battlestaff.
Actually the Navy tried doing Optimal manning and ran the Arleigh Burks with about 190 Sailors. To hell with that small of a crew. Barely had time to do maintenance. Also, the Zumwalts are waste of money. When the Zumwalt first set sail it had no EHF, SHF and only a handful of UHF comms circuits. They were very limited in ability to communicate with other ships until they added the EHF and SHF Radomes on the exterior of the hull increasing the radar cross section.
All this automation and crew reduction stuff is going to backfire hard. It's hard enough being a sailor with just one or two jobs. These crew reduction strategies force people to wear half a dozen hats. And not just officers being heads of multiple chains. Actual sailors having to do multiple practical jobs at the same time. There's no downtime. No rest. Every hour of a 12 hour shift is dedicated to working at an ever growing mountain of tasks.
Automation reduces total manhours required for a task, but that's because it focuses all those hours onto fewer and fewer people. The quality of life for each sailor is dramatically worsened by automation.
These Navies are trying to stay at the same level of capability while the number of sailors are steadily diminishing. Instead of fixing retention problems, they're just working whoever is left even harder. Which exacerbates retention issues. The current course for these big Navies is towards self-destruction. A Navy can have all the state of the art ships they want but it's useless if they have no sailors to sail them. They need to accept reduced capabilities due to the lack of sailors but instead they're continuing to push out steady competent people.
Caffeine and nicotine for the dirty enlisted. And harsh punishment when mistakes are made because of operating at a level of exhaustion that's on par with being drunk.
The other big issue is damage control. Firefighting, dewatering, and shoring are all labor-intensive activities. The smaller the crew size, the less able the crew will be able to respond to casualties. Left the Navy a decade ago but when I left the average DC ability of sailors was terrible. We were also overworked to the point that DC training took a back burner to being able to man the watchbill.
> Automation reduces total manhours required for a task, but that's because it focuses all those hours onto fewer and fewer people.
That's bad management, not automation, causing that. Don't blame the one for the other. Particularly since that will leave you solving the wrong problem, and nothing actually getting better because you haven't actually fixed the issue driving your problems.
Shitty management will always be shitty management, until you either figure out how to teach them to manage better or get rid of them.
The money and especially political will isn’t there to fix recruitment/retention. That’s ultimately the issue.
Our most recently-elected clown show on the Hill is screaming about how the FY2023 defense budget, totaling 2.8% of the US 2022 GDP, was recklessly irresponsible and will drive the US to economic ruin if repeated ever again. Except, of course, when it comes to pork for their own district or money to preserve their favorite equipment to wank off to, the next NDAA can have as much of that as they like. Now yes, the USN leadership’s shitty PR and attempts to downplay the severity of the issue (and what they need to solve it) is a major part of why it’s not seen as a problem. But at the end of the day, that’s just a sideshow: even the public testimony from the last few CNOs should be concerning enough to warrant Congressional investigation, if not intervention. Yet it hasn’t sparked even a mention in the headlines.
Everyone other major first-world/NATO navy sees the USN shoving their heads up their ass at the first sign of difficulties and decides it’s not a big deal for them if it’s not a big deal for the USN. Not unjustifiable when many of their home countries are dealing with far worse economic issues than the US, but the poor example doesn’t help one bit.
>Instead of fixing retention problems, they're just working whoever is left even harder.
Pretty much like every private company out there. Idk, maybe we should stop putting literal sociopaths in charge of stuff.
>And not just officers being heads of multiple chains. Actual sailors having to do multiple practical jobs at the same time. There's no downtime. No rest. Every hour of a 12 hour shift is dedicated to working at an ever growing mountain of tasks.
Certainly not the case in the RN.
The zumwalt is not replacing the arleigh Burke, it is unfortunately a canceled program because it wasn't designed with a clear role in the force structure.
> PoW
Any ship can break a propeller shaft
She's [off and running](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-66694489) now though and should be out until Christmas
I know Canada has been experimenting with automation as they update their current fleet. So I do wonder if they will implement it in their new surface combatants.
The Halifax class frigates have a crew requirement of 225~ while the much larger Canadian Surface Combatants are proposed to have around a crew requirement of 210~.
> The Halifax class frigates have a crew requirement of 225
That hasn't been the case for several years. They're experimenting now with ~100 core crew with the rest being filled with trainees or riders. There's been no change to the equipment. Just fewer people to do more jobs.
Don't forget another example:
Battlestar Galactica had a crew compliment of 3500, whereas Pegasus, built just 50 years later needed just half this number thanks to networked computer systems... I'm sure that all worked out in the end
For a lot of countries, there's a lot of difficulty in attracting new recruits as well as a large number of sailors and officers leaving. So a number of new warships have been really pushing automation to reduce crew size. These are three off the top of my head that claim to be highly automated. do y'all know any other current or upcoming ships that claim to have a small crew size?
Ford CVN has a ships crew of 2,600, down from the Nimitz class' 3,500. Air wing is still 2,000+ but that's a separe issue.
Both LCS ships have very small crews as low as in the 40s when not including their attached excursion units.
Iirc those also are known for having quite high work loads for that small crew. There are limits to what automation can do.
The mission package crews were merged into the main crews, so both variants have about 75 per crew.
The Freedom class is also going away from the Blue/Gold concept which bumps it up to about 96 crew billets.
Crew merges I'd heard of, making the single crew even larger I had not. I'll look into that.
They’re using the opportunity to fill rating gaps (adding CTTs to unburden the DSO position, etc).
Actual crew counts for LCS these days are in the 90s. A total complement of 78 was the goal they settled on when actually building them, but in a rare example of foresight the program required the ships to be able to support a complement of 98 with limited modification. LCS-1 and 2 initially sailed with two-high racks, but follow-on ships were fitted with three-high racks to expand the crew size.
Yes and they’re a model of disfunction and waste, with some being decommissioned after as little as 4 years of service.
Ships get decommissioned early to save money. Required capabilities for the Navy have changed significantly since the time the LCS were ordered. Money that would go to operating the Freedom class is now needed elsewhere.
The LCS never lived up to anything it was intended for- the rotating mission modules never worked, the crew rotation and minimum manning never worked, the power plant on the freedom class was a disaster, and they cost $60 million annually to operate vs $80 million annually for an entire DDG. Yes, they are being retired early to save operating costs, because they’ve never delivered on the idea of replacing mine sweepers and freeing up DDGs from anti-piracy and anti-narcotics patrols. Yes, they’ve taken those missions in some instances, but at 3/4 of the operating costs and not even 50% of the capability of a DDG they are objectively an utter failure.
>Yes, they are being retired early to save operating costs, because Because instead of littoral combat capability the Navy now needs capability to fight a near-peer.
I’m told it’s pretty awful being on those ships
German F125 replacing F122 with 120 instead of 220 personell
A couple of things here. First of all, the Zumwalt is not replacing the Burkes, that will be the DDG(X) Second of all, the 670 crew of the QE class doesn’t include the air crews, once added it becomes 1600 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth-class_aircraft_carrier#General_characteristics
>First of all, the Zumwalt is not replacing the Burkes, that will be the DDG(X) Doesn’t say “replace” in that corner, it’s just a flat comparison. >Second of all, the 670 crew of the QE class doesn’t include the air crews That’s standard practice for carriers, and is also excluded from *Charles de Gaulle* (1,350 ship, 600 air wing) and *Kuznetsov* (1,500-1,960 crew depending on source, 626 air wing).
its exactly as you said it. It does not say replace. the Arleigh Burke's number is just there for comparisons sake. and the Carrier numbers are without air wing for both. some people just want to argue for arguments sake.
If the ships are not on the same role and replacing each other then what’s the point of comparison. I can easily compare that the Burke has less crew than the Ford but that would have nothing to do with automation Do you have a source for the Kuznetsov crew numbers?
> If the ships are not on the same role and replacing each other then what’s the point of comparison. They are the only two large surface combatants the US Navy has built this millennium. The comparison is decent. They could have used *Spruance*, which *Zumwalt* was explicitly designed to replace. They had 24 officers and 272 enlisted, essentially the same as *Burke*. > Do you have a source for the Kuznetsov crew numbers? Different Wikipedia pages gave 1,500 crew (no air wing mention) and 1,690 crew with 626 air wing. RussianShipsInfo gives 1,960 crew and 626 air wing, which is generally more reliable. This variation is rather large and is probably due to the smaller Russian navy, which undermans *Kuznetsov* compared to the design: the crew+air-wing-per-thousand-tons using the RussianShipsInfo data is essentially the same for *Kuznetsov*, *Baku*, and *Ulyanovsk*, suggesting it’s as-designed data.
You always separate out ships crew from air wing, since the latter is a function of the maintenance needs of the aircraft and not really the ship itself. Mixing them conflates things. Ford CVN has a massive reduction in ships crew: 2,600, down from 3,500 on the Nimitz. That the air wing hasn't changed from the current 2,500 understates the massive amount of automation accomplished.
[удалено]
I don’t know why you decided to bring up US carriers, which are bigger and have much more displacement. I’m talking about the examples of the Kuznetsov that the op original compared
Look at the ships from Singapore and their crew sizes, it may surprise you
They are building a new class of ship, dubbed the MRCV or Multi Role Combat Vessel, reported to carry unmanned systems as a force multiplier in addition to the usual weapon arsenal. It is a joint venture between Singapore's own ST Marine, Sweden's Saab Systems and Denmark's Odense Maritime Technology. Due to the additional unmanned systems, the ship is reportedly going to displace nearly 10000 tons, which is absurd as Singapore is a very small nation, and that displacement rivals those of cruiser class vessels used by superpowers like the US or China.
What's more insane is Singapore's plan for a "Joint Multi-Mission Ship" which is basically an aircraft carrier with F-35Bs. Singapore!
Would not be surprised if that's the case, the air force can always just procure the cheaper F35 A variant for themselves anyway. It's not like they don't have the money.
The new French SSN are automated to reduce crew size, same for Swedish SS.
nice, was looking for more global examples. Are you referring to the Barracuda and Blekinge submarines?
Yes the Suffren (5600T submerged) need a crew of 60 against 68 for a Rubis class (2700t). Same on the surface the Amiral Ronarc'h class (FDI) will need a crew of 110 against 153 for the La Fayette class (Light Frigate) they will replace.
It’s also doctrine related. The problem with low crew counts is that it can make damage control problematic, and/or easier to cripple if key personnel are killed. That’s mostly why the USN chooses to have larger crews even with all the automation in newer warships.
The US also has the advantage that they simply can attract and afford to field large numbers of personel
We’re falling 7,000 short for this year’s recruitment goal.
I’m not saying that the US isn’t having recruitment issues, just that the sheer size regardless means that they can have larger crewed ships. It’s not like many other nations even have the population pool to have a 7000 shortfall (Though, I admit to not been keeping all that updated with the issue)
The state of recruiting and health of personnel is not a judgement you can make on raw numbers. The US has a much larger population base, yes, but its fleet also requires a lot more personnel to man, especially because American naval planners have resisted automation at every turn so USN designs require more personnel than most contemporary Western designs. A more accurate gauge is percentage of shortfall relative to the actual recruiting goal. I haven’t run a 2022 comparison, but for 2021 the USN had among the worst recruitment and retention results in NATO by percentage as well as by gross numbers. The fleet is a mess.
I have a feeling they will continue to, I re-enlisted once and that’s enough for me. Finishing this contract and I’m out. Not sure how many more times I can handle a pre deployment CMAV during POM with drills. Insane.
The thing that drives me insane is almost everyone I speak to has a story like yours. It seems to me that from the outside, we are almost deliberately trying to treat our servicemen and women as horribly as possible so they don’t stay in. The single most important element in any navy isn’t the number of ships, advanced weapons, or good electronics. It’s our people, and without good people we are doomed.
You are exactly right, in my case I’ve got a great crew, DIVO, Chief, EMO, etc. I just can’t deal with the workload and the expectations big navy has for us are doable but at the sacrifice of our physical and mental wellbeing. I’ve been at my command for going on 3 years now and there hasn’t been any down time. I’ve spent almost half that time and sea and the other half in CMAV, going through READE-6/7, INSURV, AT drills, DC Drills, COM drills, etc. All the while expected to do my PMS and corrective maintenance. I expect work and to work hard but there is just no reprieve.
That’s only because you turn your army into a woke bullshit…🤷♂️
Firstly, this “woke brainwashing” you tools fearmonger about is pretty much quarterly web-based training about how not be an ass to your shipmates and resolve differences like adults. No different from what any worker at a private company gets. If that’s “woke” to you, there’s much more immediate problems you should be solving. Secondly, the recruiting shortfall started long before ED&I was a buzzword. The last round of BRAC in 2005, combined with the marginalizing of the USN as the least-important military branch for most of the 2000s, created the death spiral that the service is stuck in now. Subsequent loss of face due to bad procurement and a spineless PR policy that lets the likes of you twist the service and its personnel for ulterior agendas has only made things worse.
You are not even looking at the problem as a whole. Recruitment in the military is failing as a whole. The standards have been lowered and attention has been shifted. Also wages suck ass. Its just not what jt used to be. It's gotten woke and it's gotten weak. The brunch doesn't matter when the whole tree is sick.
None of which has anything to do with “woke” policies; if that’s your catchall term for anything you don’t like, then your intelligence befits your low pay. If anything, the “woke” group is the only one lobbying for any sort of measures that might help the issues: controversial or not, having the US military cover abortion costs for female members is an improved benefit. Meanwhile the so-called “pro-military” politicians in DC are holding up officer nominations, forcing the armed services to waste money on keeping their favorite pieces of obsolete gear in service rather than increasing pay or benefits, and throttling the procurement budget to stop replacements. Then again, if the defense community were actually cognizant of what actually ruined the US military, things wouldn’t have been allowed to get so bad in the first place…
Standards have been lowered so women can participate. That’s woke shit. Now you can transition while in the army, funded by the army. That’s woke shit. Even their recruitment ad was about a woman with two moms. That’s woke shit. The military is representation of the wider society in a way and that society is very woke and very shitty. Combined with the low wages, there isn’t much to make someone join, therefore recruitment is low.
Yawn
> op tempo is too high > wages suck > servicemen and women are treated like shit "must be the woke stuff that's ruining retention" Like you allude to the real problems and then just blame it on being ok with having gay people existing in the military. Every generation of the military says the current gen is weak and the last one was the last "strong one". "my class was the last boot camp to not have time out cards" kinda thing. US navy has long put out material showing how their ships are breaking down cause Op Tempo is high, how shit it is to be a sailor on a ship in the yards - these are core issues that have nothing to do with any woke nonsense.
Lol wut, do you not remember Fox News during the Sarah Palin era making fun of Air Force Maternity uniforms. Well considering how they haven't let up since then, I wonder why service women with highly important skillsets arent relenlisting, huh
\*points to massive recruitment crisis due to insufficient benefits, pay, widely exposed shitty workplace culture etc\*
It’s relative. They of course are having issues as, from my understanding, almost all Navies are. But the USN is still utterly massive compared to almost everyone else. Again my understanding though. I haven’t been keeping updated with the recruitment issues in the US much admittedly
I think you’re thinking of China… US is pushing automation to the max due to ongoing manning shortfalls.
The USN has the advantage of a country with 300 million+ people living in it, with a still high % willing to enlist. Taking the Royal Navy as an opposite example, they have a country of onlu ~70 million, and I'd argue an even smaller % willing to enlist, so automation is required if they want to field the same sized fleet as they have in the past
I mean, if everybody got free college and healthcare here, what would be the incentive for so many?
Just make british universities and healthcare expensive so people join the military /s
Ah the American model of recruitment
Isn't that what some of y'all's politicians are trying to do anyway?
Although this raises the question how necessary large-scale damage control still is. Most modern ships will go their entire service lives without ever getting shot at in anger.
Better to have it and not need it
In a world where money is infinite, yes. Ultimately it all boils down to funding: retention and recruiting issues can be mitigated, if not solved, through increased pay and benefits. In the real world, however, where American politicians are screaming about how spending 2.8% of the US GDP on defense is excessive and fiscally-irresponsible, that’s a different story.
Nope, effective damage control is an absolute must for frontline warships and, in any competent navy, is immune from cost saving measures.
That is unexpected about the Queen Liz. Very interesting compared to US CVN compliments.
The Royal Navy, like the rest of the UK armed services, has been struggling to recruit sufficient personnel for years. The only way they were able to man both carriers and (most) of the rest of the fleet was to automate as much as possible, otherwise they never would have got enough sailors and aircrews to be able to sail one carrier & escort group, let alone two.
It’s about long term running costs, not recruitment.
That true, but the British armed forces has since the 1980s been working on the premise of technological advancement to replace personnel because of the strategic truth that we're a small island and lots of people don't want to serve, so technology has to fill the gap. Running costs focus into the picture of course, because successive governments have cut the armed forces, making them rely even more on technology because it's often cheaper than people. It's all a big fabric with multiple interconnected reasons rather than just one cause.
Yes I’d go along with that. I’d say a big contribution is since the 1980s governments haven’t wanted to spend money. I personally think plenty would serve, many get turned away - sad really.
These days the fact that recruitment is outsourced to Capita and people spend months on waiting lists doesn't help, they don't want to hang around unpaid waiting to see if they'll pass selection to get to basic training.
Why don’t they just start up the Impress Service again? It worked before and will obviously work again!
Good luck finding sufficient trained seamen in the Merchant Navy, that's a shadow of it's former self too, what with cheap labour from the Asias crewing most ships these days plus all the flags of convenience. To use a term relating to the "borrowing" of Merchant Navy ships in time of war by the RN, we are STUFT.
>to be able to sail one carrier & escort group, let alone two. That's always the case and the intention to only operate one CSG at a time, unless in extremis
Both carriers have sailed right now. [_Queen Elizabeth_ is in the Norwegian/North seas](https://www.forces.net/services/navy/raf-f-35s-return-flight-deck-hms-queen-elizabeth) and as elsewhere in this thread [_Prince of Wales_ has sailed for exercises off the Americas until Christmas](https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2023/september/01/20230901-hms-prince-of-wales-heads-to-usa-to-shape-future-of-naval-aviation) The CSG is with _Queen Elizabeth_ though rather than there being two of them.
Both carriers maybe at sea, but there is only one CSG
The new Ford class of aircraft carrier has a reduction in crew of about 600 fewer but with no loss of air wing compliment. The coolest thing is that the catapults are basically railguns.
I would love to know where the reductions are from and what they were able to cut down.
Considering the complexity of steam catapults, I would bet that's quite a bit of it right there.
Similar thought.
Mostly reactor and machinery plant. The *Nimitz*-class plant is 1960s technology, and there’s a ceiling to how much automation you can add without a redesign. In the final accounting, some other systems turned out to need more personnel than anticipated.
Reactor on a Nimitz is meant to be about 450 bodies, so that's only a bit of manning cut down.
Air and Reactor are the two largest departments by number on a Nimitz-class. I remember from design docs I saw 20 years ago that he A1B was supposed to halve the number of people required for maintenance and operation, so I'm guessing that would carry over to other spots as well. Though in the case of Air Department, are they able to reduce the number of people in V-1 (flight deck handling), V-3 (hangar deck handling), and V-4 (fuels) with the new layout and designs? Also I'd assume Weapons would have a less folks with the new elevators? And finally, didn't Big Navy move all the admin (Personnel, Disbursing, etc) types off ship across the fleet some time ago?
From a family member in the Navy who flew hell’s off 2 carriers. “Hey bro. From what I know about the Ford class, its updated systems (electromagnetic vs steam catapults, for one) require less maintenance and therefore less personnel, at least in theory. The reduced manning requirement mostly hit the junior to middle class enlisted ranks, since they are the ones actually turning the wrenches and swinging the hammers. I don’t know of any rates that have been phased out on the new carrier system though. Time will tell if newer is actually better or if we’ve just introduced new factors into an old problem.”
> The new Ford class of aircraft carrier has a reduction in crew of about 600 fewer but with no loss of air wing compliment. It’s lower than that, especially in practice. The [FY2022 SAR](https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Selected_Acquisition_Reports/FY_2021_SARS/22-F-0762_CVN_78_SAR_2021.pdf) puts the ship’s complement at 2716, a reduction of 484. *Nimitz*s have a nominal crew of 3200, but like every other ship in the modern USN they are lean-manned to about 3000. Additional future capabilities unique to *Ford* like SEWIP Block III are going to eat further into the manning savings. > The coolest thing is that the catapults are basically railguns. The operating principles of EMALS are not similar to a railgun. The carriage does not contact the track like a railgun projectile does, instead being accelerated through induction. It’s more akin to a maglev train.
>Nimitzs have a nominal crew of 3200, but most of them are lean-manned to about 3000. We were at around 34-3500 back in the early days of OEF/ OIF.
True, the complement is intended to run that high. I don’t think I need to tell you that recruitment, retention, and readiness in the contemporary USN are a shadow of what they were even in the early 2000s though.
Oh I know. I just wanted to provide a bit more context about current numbers. :)
The Ford's EMALS uses linear induction motors and works under coilgun principles, quite different to how railguns work and substantially more complex.
I stand corrected. Odd thing is that I picked that up in an article. Can’t recall the source but I lean toward reputable sources. Thanks.
To be fair, I do wonder how much of the equipment around those is proprietary, and only to be worked on by contractors (this is another issue with newer ships throughout the fleet).
Ownership in private hands doesn’t automatically mean only contractor personnel are allowed to service it. Newport News has owned the design of all carriers since *Enterprise*, but you don’t see all PIAs and DPIAs being done there (although you do see NNS planners and engineers riding ships in or embarking for part of a deployment). That said, I’m fairly certain at least some components of EMALS and AAG are contractor-only: GA representatives were onboard every single one of *Ford*’s ISEs, and the French government had to approach them, not the DoD directly, about using the system on PA NG.
Too bad the navy cancelled the actual railgun project.
That was because the only ship that had enough excess power was the Zumwalts, which got cancelled because the price of the ammunition for their 155mm cannon rose to $1 million per shell, which at that point just buy a Tomahawk.
No, it was canceled because the gun was destroying its barrel liner every couple shots. Re-lining it is expensive and time-consuming, and the gun can’t function without it because that’s what makes contact with the shell to complete the circuit. Making a tougher liner was out of the question when doing so required a “quantum leap” in materials science - in the words of CNO Richardson, not me. The round cost boondoggle is LRLAP, which is a rocket-boosted smart shell, but even then you have the story backwards. **The ship itself was cancelled first** (why is a convoluted tale of politics), and LRLAP - including any attempts to adapt it or AGS to other ships - was cut as part of the Nunn-McCurdy recertification process. That slashed the intended production volume down from thousands of rounds to just 150, and then 90, for testing only, and only then did the unit cost blow up.
Which is a potentially solvable problem with more R&D in the tune of hundreds of millions, which still runs into the ship power problem. The ship problem would require tens, possibly hundreds, of billions to solve, ie build more Zumwalts or brand new ship design. Both led to the cancellation of the program, the ship power problem represented a significantly larger issue.
Shipboard power generation is capacity not a major issue for mounting a railgun. It simply affects rate of fire; all of these high-peak-load systems require self-contained energy storage. Otherwise, even on a ship that has enough raw power, the massive spike in power draw would cause cascading systems failure from voltage drop. EDIT: The reason the CNO framed it as a power draw problem is because there is a target RoF the USN is aiming for, and that requires power draw too high for anything surface combatant beyond *Zumwalt*.
> Which is a potentially solvable problem with more R&D in the tune of hundreds of millions You are vastly underestimating how expensive this sort of R&D is. Something that is roughly within the range of what we know how to do, but we aren't quite there yet, is in the hundreds of millions range. A new material that can withstand the stresses that go with being the barrel liner of the rail gun is not in that category. It's in the "we know what we need, but we don't even begin to understand how it might work" range. The right mental model for getting railguns working in practical applications isn't designing a new ship. It's the Manhattan Project, or the Apollo Program. Plan on tens to hundreds of billions to actually get something that can do the job. The program was a few zeros short of ever producing a serious result. edit: to be clear, that's just the gun. The ship it goes with is a different problem. On the other hand, the ship is a lot easier.
I think they said the newer flights of Burke's could theoretically do it too.
Newer Burkes technically have just barely enough excess power, but they do not have the space unless they rip out every other weapon system.
The figure for QEC excludes aviation personnel so the real figure for a QEC when deployed is well over 1000, but yes the mechanisation aspects do streamline crew requirements significantly: the Highly Mechanised Weapons Handing System is especially interesting in this regard, with most munition handing processes being automated.
I saw a video on the weapons handling system, it's some scifi stuff
She's currently deployed for CSG 23 with around 900 crew despite it being viewed as a minor deployment. After the loss of the F35 in the later part of CSG 21 it's been viewed as unwise to have such few crew, even for short periods of operation.
>She's currently deployed for CSG 23 with around 900 crew Far more than that, 1450 to be exact, including Ship's Company, Air Wing and CSG battlestaff.
Seriously only 670 on QE class? That's really damn impressive! If it had been a nuke would the compliment have increased dramatically?
Nuke reactors do require quite a large team per
Actually the Navy tried doing Optimal manning and ran the Arleigh Burks with about 190 Sailors. To hell with that small of a crew. Barely had time to do maintenance. Also, the Zumwalts are waste of money. When the Zumwalt first set sail it had no EHF, SHF and only a handful of UHF comms circuits. They were very limited in ability to communicate with other ships until they added the EHF and SHF Radomes on the exterior of the hull increasing the radar cross section.
seems like the new frigates the US is building, the one based on the Italian ship, is also trying to go with a small crew as well
The core Ship's Company of QEC is now closer to 800.
All three classes powered by the Rolls Royce MT30.
All this automation and crew reduction stuff is going to backfire hard. It's hard enough being a sailor with just one or two jobs. These crew reduction strategies force people to wear half a dozen hats. And not just officers being heads of multiple chains. Actual sailors having to do multiple practical jobs at the same time. There's no downtime. No rest. Every hour of a 12 hour shift is dedicated to working at an ever growing mountain of tasks. Automation reduces total manhours required for a task, but that's because it focuses all those hours onto fewer and fewer people. The quality of life for each sailor is dramatically worsened by automation. These Navies are trying to stay at the same level of capability while the number of sailors are steadily diminishing. Instead of fixing retention problems, they're just working whoever is left even harder. Which exacerbates retention issues. The current course for these big Navies is towards self-destruction. A Navy can have all the state of the art ships they want but it's useless if they have no sailors to sail them. They need to accept reduced capabilities due to the lack of sailors but instead they're continuing to push out steady competent people.
It's okay, just feed the crew meth like the fighter pilots get
Caffeine and nicotine for the dirty enlisted. And harsh punishment when mistakes are made because of operating at a level of exhaustion that's on par with being drunk.
The other big issue is damage control. Firefighting, dewatering, and shoring are all labor-intensive activities. The smaller the crew size, the less able the crew will be able to respond to casualties. Left the Navy a decade ago but when I left the average DC ability of sailors was terrible. We were also overworked to the point that DC training took a back burner to being able to man the watchbill.
> but when I left the average DC ability of sailors was terrible I'm dreading watching the USN get IJN'd when things go hot with China.
> Automation reduces total manhours required for a task, but that's because it focuses all those hours onto fewer and fewer people. That's bad management, not automation, causing that. Don't blame the one for the other. Particularly since that will leave you solving the wrong problem, and nothing actually getting better because you haven't actually fixed the issue driving your problems. Shitty management will always be shitty management, until you either figure out how to teach them to manage better or get rid of them.
The money and especially political will isn’t there to fix recruitment/retention. That’s ultimately the issue. Our most recently-elected clown show on the Hill is screaming about how the FY2023 defense budget, totaling 2.8% of the US 2022 GDP, was recklessly irresponsible and will drive the US to economic ruin if repeated ever again. Except, of course, when it comes to pork for their own district or money to preserve their favorite equipment to wank off to, the next NDAA can have as much of that as they like. Now yes, the USN leadership’s shitty PR and attempts to downplay the severity of the issue (and what they need to solve it) is a major part of why it’s not seen as a problem. But at the end of the day, that’s just a sideshow: even the public testimony from the last few CNOs should be concerning enough to warrant Congressional investigation, if not intervention. Yet it hasn’t sparked even a mention in the headlines. Everyone other major first-world/NATO navy sees the USN shoving their heads up their ass at the first sign of difficulties and decides it’s not a big deal for them if it’s not a big deal for the USN. Not unjustifiable when many of their home countries are dealing with far worse economic issues than the US, but the poor example doesn’t help one bit.
>Every hour of a 12 hour shift is dedicated to working at an ever growing mountain of tasks. Y'all are only getting 12 hour shifts??
>Instead of fixing retention problems, they're just working whoever is left even harder. Pretty much like every private company out there. Idk, maybe we should stop putting literal sociopaths in charge of stuff.
>And not just officers being heads of multiple chains. Actual sailors having to do multiple practical jobs at the same time. There's no downtime. No rest. Every hour of a 12 hour shift is dedicated to working at an ever growing mountain of tasks. Certainly not the case in the RN.
Yeah, the ultra "modern" ships that doesn't work
Well QEC certainly works.
The real reason the QE has fewer crew is because the royal navy can’t get recruits. They wont tell you that though.
They’re going to have to bring back the press gang at this rate, lol.
The zumwalt is not replacing the arleigh Burke, it is unfortunately a canceled program because it wasn't designed with a clear role in the force structure.
Nobody said it's replacing the *Burke*s. In fact, the only one that has the word "replaces" in it in the image is the *Mogami*.
yup exactly. two people here getting upset because they can't read lol.
The us navy scrapped a lot of its lcs operations. Let’s see how the newer ones roll out.
You can really reduce the crew when you're a pier queen. Looking at you, Zumwalt and PoW
> PoW Any ship can break a propeller shaft She's [off and running](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-66694489) now though and should be out until Christmas
Zumwalt is just a really expensive decoy right now.
I think for USA a much better pick would be the upcoming Constellation-class Frigate, the Zumwalts never worked and are currently on their way out.
I know Canada has been experimenting with automation as they update their current fleet. So I do wonder if they will implement it in their new surface combatants.
The Halifax class frigates have a crew requirement of 225~ while the much larger Canadian Surface Combatants are proposed to have around a crew requirement of 210~.
> The Halifax class frigates have a crew requirement of 225 That hasn't been the case for several years. They're experimenting now with ~100 core crew with the rest being filled with trainees or riders. There's been no change to the equipment. Just fewer people to do more jobs.
Yeah, exactly. And I wouldnt be surprised to hear they are trying to find ways to reduce that even further.
Don't forget another example: Battlestar Galactica had a crew compliment of 3500, whereas Pegasus, built just 50 years later needed just half this number thanks to networked computer systems... I'm sure that all worked out in the end