HMCS Montréal part of navy trial to experiment with reducing crews

[jollyjacktar]

This will be interesting to see what they try.  I am not keen on core crew, mission crewing.  For a while VDQ had a core crew and they were used as the training platform for a considerable time.  The core crew stayed while newbies came and went while they cycled through work ups after work ups.  For the core crew it was hard on morale.  For this experiment, it will be challenging to use a reduced crew on a ship that was not designed for a reduced crew.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/royal-canadian-navy-reducing-crews-1.3516037

 

[Eland2]

This will be interesting to see what they try.  I am not keen on core crew, mission crewing.  For a while VDQ had a core crew and they were used as the training platform for a considerable time.  The core crew stayed while newbies came and went while they cycled through work ups after work ups.  For the core crew it was hard on morale.  For this experiment, it will be challenging to use a reduced crew on a ship that was not designed for a reduced crew.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/royal-canadian-navy-reducing-crews-1.3516037

The US Navy have been doing this with their new littoral patrol vessels, working with what are essentially skeleton crews but trying to get full-complement performance. Can't say it's working too well from some of the media reports I've been seeing. Sailors crewing the littoral ships are burnt out and exhausted because of inadequate time for eating, resting and sleeping. In wartime, this kind of penny-wise and pound-foolish thinking is going to get people killed and ships sunk, and it's probably just a lucky thing this hasn't happened in peacetime, if it doesn't end up happening sooner or later.

This kind of management approach is so wrong-headed because it's like trying to get maximum performance out of a car engine while giving it progressively less oil and fuel.

If things are so bad that you have to resort to using tiny crews to save money, maybe it's better to forget about having a navy, or instead drastically reducing its overall capabilities so that the scale of operations and equipment matches the budget. I can eventually see the RCN doing away with most of its ships and then relying on drones and on-shore missile batteries if things keep going the way they are for much longer.

 

[FSTO]

This will be interesting to see what they try.  I am not keen on core crew, mission crewing.  For a while VDQ had a core crew and they were used as the training platform for a considerable time.  The core crew stayed while newbies came and went while they cycled through work ups after work ups.  For the core crew it was hard on morale.  For this experiment, it will be challenging to use a reduced crew on a ship that was not designed for a reduced crew.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/royal-canadian-navy-reducing-crews-1.3516037

Damage control issues should put to rest this type of foolishness.
HMS Newcastle damn near sank due to exhausted crew when she hit Wolf Rock off New Zealand.

http://www.professionalmariner.com/March-2007/Royal-Navy-destroyer-hits-rock-nearly-sinks-off-New-Zealand/

Quote
Weary workers were replaced by fresh help from Te Mana and Endeavour, while the Australian divers stopped work during spells of 60-knot winds and surging seas.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Damage control issues should put to rest this type of foolishness.
HMS Newcastle damn near sank due to exhausted crew when she hit Wolf Rock off New Zealand.

http://www.professionalmariner.com/March-2007/Royal-Navy-destroyer-hits-rock-nearly-sinks-off-New-Zealand/

Quote
Weary workers were replaced by fresh help from Te Mana and Endeavour, while the Australian divers stopped work during spells of 60-knot winds and surging seas.

I don't think it will though.  The adults have the bit firmly between the teeth it seems.  I suspect they want to get us used to doing more with less (as if we have not already) so that when the new ships come we'll be normalized to the new numbers.  They're going ahead with smashing the HT, Stokers and ET into one new trade later this year.  More with less.

 

[FSTO]

I don't think it will though.  The adults have the bit firmly between the teeth it seems.  I suspect they want to get us used to doing more with less (as if we have not already) so that when the new ships come we'll be normalized to the new numbers.  They're going ahead with smashing the HT, Stokers and ET into one new trade later this year.  More with less.

:facepalm:
I'm so glad I don't go to sea anymore.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I'm afraid I may have to after Ottawa.  Not really keen at sitting watch in the MCR at the Stoker seats and FLYCO isn't overly appealing either. 

 

[Eaglelord17]

I suspect these 'trials' have more to do with a lack of manning in the lower ranks (not enough sailors to properly man the ships in the first place) than a actual want to reduce numbers.

 

[Sub_Guy]

I've always thought we could reduce the numbers.  There are plenty of other navies out there who man ships the size of our frigates with smaller crews.

 

[MJP]

I've always thought we could reduce the numbers.  There are plenty of other navies out there who man ships the size of our frigates with smaller crews.

Flippant because I know next to nothing about the Navy but this is the Canadian Forces, if we had three people left we would form 2 separate HQs to watch over 1 dude.  We love overmanning shit, unfortunately not generally at the coal face.

 

[NavyShooter]

CHA went to the Sound Range for 48 hours once with 90 pers onboard.  A single steaming watch, with full Part Ship Hands and bridge crew.

It was.....not enough people.

I've heard rumbles about the trial and will be very interested to see what it does to the ability to deal with multiple incidents concurrently. 

An MCDV is a single incident/evolution ship.

An AOPS will probably be the same.

A HFX class with full crew is able to do multiple incidents all at once, reducing the crew without reducing that expectation will be....difficult.

 

[Underway]

There needs to be trials.  If it can be done it should be done. However a main component of reduced crewing is moving much of the ships functions ashore, like the tenders, minor war vessels etc...  There are lots of technologies that can reduce the number of pers on board for a standard sail, monitoring tech replacing for example engineering roundsmen.  On the bridge do we really need that many lookouts, [sarcasm]you already have a OOW, 2OOW, 3OOW, 4OOW [\sarcasm]?  Why can the helmsman be a single person vice one on the throttle and one on the helm?  How many people do you really need to bring the ship alongside?  The Coast guard does it with 5 pers on ships the same size as the MCDV, yet we have a full ship evolution.  RAZ pers, MOBEX can be significantly reduced with an appropriate application of tech and procedure.

[rant]There are so many stupid admin things that warships do that really should be done away with that serve only to exhaust crews.  You know the 5 redundant reports that are sent to 6 different depts ashore, signed by 4 different people at sea, hand written for the war diary, navigation logs, engineering logs, in 6 different ways, that only serve to keep the senior officers up obscenely late to sign, junior officers up extremely late writing them, after the NCO's stayed up late compiling them, and the ratings stayed up kinda late getting the info for them.

Don't even get me started on the overly anally retentive maintenance cycles and the "lets just paint ship this weekend though it doesn't need it" type make work projects that crop up because the CO wants to get promoted.

You reduce crew you need to reduce workload and eliminate these ridiculous redundancies.  Our professionalism won't let us accept less than what we did with a full crew but we only have half the crew size to do it.  CO's need to start speaking truth to power and getting this stupidity shut down.  No wonder crews get exhausted. They get exhausted with full crews now.
[\rant] (apparently I'm in a pissy mood today) :nod:

 

[Stoker]

CHA went to the Sound Range for 48 hours once with 90 pers onboard.  A single steaming watch, with full Part Ship Hands and bridge crew.

It was.....not enough people.

I've heard rumbles about the trial and will be very interested to see what it does to the ability to deal with multiple incidents concurrently. 

An MCDV is a single incident/evolution ship.

An AOPS will probably be the same.

A HFX class with full crew is able to do multiple incidents all at once, reducing the crew without reducing that expectation will be....difficult.

Actually I was to fight 2 fires and a flood with 39 people on board (Kingston Class) and considered sustainability. The writing is on the wall, this how the future ships will be run. The other day we had our amalgamation briefing and we will need to do more with less.

 

[jollyjacktar]

There needs to be trials.  If it can be done it should be done. However a main component of reduced crewing is moving much of the ships functions ashore, like the tenders, minor war vessels etc...  There are lots of technologies that can reduce the number of pers on board for a standard sail, monitoring tech replacing for example engineering roundsmen.  On the bridge do we really need that many lookouts, [sarcasm]you already have a OOW, 2OOW, 3OOW, 4OOW [\sarcasm]?  Why can the helmsman be a single person vice one on the throttle and one on the helm?  How many people do you really need to bring the ship alongside?  The Coast guard does it with 5 pers on ships the same size as the MCDV, yet we have a full ship evolution.  RAZ pers, MOBEX can be significantly reduced with an appropriate application of tech and procedure.

[rant]There are so many stupid admin things that warships do that really should be done away with that serve only to exhaust crews.  You know the 5 redundant reports that are sent to 6 different depts ashore, signed by 4 different people at sea, hand written for the war diary, navigation logs, engineering logs, in 6 different ways, that only serve to keep the senior officers up obscenely late to sign, junior officers up extremely late writing them, after the NCO's stayed up late compiling them, and the ratings stayed up kinda late getting the info for them.

Don't even get me started on the overly anally retentive maintenance cycles and the "lets just paint ship this weekend though it doesn't need it" type make work projects that crop up because the CO wants to get promoted.

You reduce crew you need to reduce workload and eliminate these ridiculous redundancies.  Our professionalism won't let us accept less than what we did with a full crew but we only have half the crew size to do it.  CO's need to start speaking truth to power and getting this stupidity shut down.  No wonder crews get exhausted. They get exhausted with full crews now.
[\rant] (apparently I'm in a pissy mood today) :nod:

I expect you're not with the engineering side of things.  It's difficult enough now to try and keep up with PM and CM, it won't get easier or less of a requirement just because we have less people to do it.  And don't get me started on major events happening, they can and do happen ala PRO.  That also won't be easier just because we have less people either.

Automation is fine, when it works and is available.  CPF were not built with a reduced crew size or at the very least a greatly reduced crew size in mind. 

I agree, there are some of the bullshit items that we do that is unnecessary now and go along ways towards crew fatigue and apathy. 

What I fear it will all boil down to is more or less to old adage that you don't want a cop around until you really need one.  The reduced crew might be OK for 99/100 times, but for the 1/100th...

 

[Stoker]

I expect you're not with the engineering side of things.  It's difficult enough now to try and keep up with PM and CM, it won't get easier or less of a requirement just because we have less people to do it.  And don't get me started on major events happening, they can and do happen ala PRO.  That also won't be easier just because we have less people either.

Automation is fine, when it works and is available.  CPF were not built with a reduced crew size or at the very least a greatly reduced crew size in mind. 

I agree, there are some of the bullshit items that we do that is unnecessary now and go along ways towards crew fatigue and apathy. 

What I fear it will all boil down to is more or less to old adage that you don't want a cop around until you really need one.  The reduced crew might be OK for 99/100 times, but for the 1/100th...

CM and PM is going to be way easier when we combine trades or haven't you heard

 

[jollyjacktar]

Of course,  that shit will just fix itself.    :nod:

 

[Stoker]

Of course,  that crap will just fix itself.    :nod:

I just can't wait until dayworkrers have to watchkeep.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Of course,  that crap will just fix itself.    :nod:

Well, yes! Didn't you know that CM and Pm are like budgets. They balance themselves  :nod:

All joking aside, I think there is a lot of "putting the cart before the horse" in this decision. Yes, the next generation of ships will be a lot more automated than the current gen. As a result of this extra automation, they will require less watch keepers (The bridge crew of a Type 45 destroyer is seven - can you imagine only seven people on watch on the bridge of a HAL - the bridge would look empty). However, until we do get this extra automation, it is pointless to try reduced crewing on ship's that don't have the automated system.
Just my opinion.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I just can't wait until dayworkrers have to watchkeep.

Of course,  that will just make it easier to keep up with maintenance and exercises and storing ship and, and, and...

 

[Underway]

I expect you're not with the engineering side of things.  It's difficult enough now to try and keep up with PM and CM, it won't get easier or less of a requirement just because we have less people to do it.  And don't get me started on major events happening, they can and do happen ala PRO.  That also won't be easier just because we have less people either.

Automation is fine, when it works and is available.  CPF were not built with a reduced crew size or at the very least a greatly reduced crew size in mind. 

I agree, there are some of the bullshit items that we do that is unnecessary now and go along ways towards crew fatigue and apathy. 

What I fear it will all boil down to is more or less to old adage that you don't want a cop around until you really need one.  The reduced crew might be OK for 99/100 times, but for the 1/100th...

I started in ops and now am in the engineering side.  I've seen both sides of the coin.  They both need work.  I agree the 1/100 is absolutely correct.  But for day to day crew exhaustion we can do a lot with much less.  The other issue is the CPF wasn't designed to operate with less like you said.  The new ships should be.  It's going to put less day to day fatigue on the crew which leads to accidents and missed assignments.  I'm not saying that there are perfect solutions but we need to try and figure it out best we can.  Wait until the babyboomers start retiring in full force.  The Navy will only be able to sail ghostships.  There has to be a solution.  We have to try.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I'm one of the boomers.  I don't expect to see AOPS for long in my time left.  Crew reductions are quite frankly the least of my worries.  The great smash that's coming with the engineering side is going to be what kills me or really torpedoes my morale I fear.