HMCS Montréal part of navy trial to experiment with reducing crews

[dimsum]

:goodpost:

 

[jollyjacktar]

MARS, you're also comparing a ship that is built to commercial standards IIRC, not as tech heavy, serviced under an in service contract.  The AOPS will be more along that line of design and intent will be designed, built and equipped with a smaller crew from the get go.  Hell, for that matter it's not even intended to go into combat. 

A heavy is a different bird.  They can pare down, but that will come at costs.  I cannot speak for the non-engineering side of the house as that is not my area of experience.  Yes, sure you be able to cut into the engineers to some degree.  But you can only spread the butter so far so thin.  These ships are getting older and like any older vehicle they get harder and harder to maintain.  Most of my sailing as been on the tankers, we were rarely it seemed to be able to get to the PM as the CM was always knocking on the shop door and it only got exponentially more so as they aged.  The CPF are getting the same in many respects as they age from my experience.  Of course, we will reply "Aye, Aye" and carry on as directed.  We always do.

As I said earlier, I'm sure it will all go swimmingly.  Until it doesn't.  I believe that will be as true tomorrow as it has in the past. 

 

[Nuggs]

Land the coxn first, that'll save you one bunk.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Katz, you can't compare the Kootenay explosion (it was not  an "incident") to current attempts at crew reduction risks.

First of all, seven of Kootenay's 9 death were directly attributable to the engine room fireball incinerating the engine room watch. So in an automated unmanned engine room situation, they would not have died. Two more and many of the injured came from the compartment just above, the main cafeteria, which couldn't be evacuated fast enough due to a lack of emergency exiting routes. This was later re-designed on all the St-Laurent's, including the addition of the very useful ladder to the upper deck by the galley survery - which was not present on the Kootenay.

There is no evidence that anyone in Kootenay suffered as a result of a shortage of personnel. There was hard work and exhaustion, for sure, in those that fought the fire afterwards, but in an automated environment, such exhaustion and hard work would only come after the automated system would have failed to stop the fire.

And Colin, I don't deny your post, but with all due respect, the Canadian coast guard is just a government run merchant service. In my (albeit limited) experience with the CCG, any time something even slightly out of the most basic routine occurs, the captain is on the bridge and personally handling everything - just as on a merchant  ship. We don't operate like that in the Navy. If you go through pictures of Canadian warships at sea on the internet, you will see flying from them a white and blue (vertical stripes) pennant flying with  letter flag (alpha, bravo, charlie, etc.) flying under it: It means the Captain has handed the whole maneuver over to the XO, the Ops O, the Nav O , etc. When was the last time you saw a captain in the coast guard tell the fourth officer: you do the alongside in Quebec City today! Navy C.O.'s do that all the time [Primary duty of a CO is to train his/her replacement - As C.O., I never handled more than about 40% of all close quarter maneuvers or alongsides]

With 2 of the Captains we had, we would have been better off had the Mate being doing the docking  [
I know it's apples and oranges and we had a fair share of issues with multiple tasks as well. On the R class if the Captain trusted the Mate then he would, on the 1100's the Captain would be on the bridge, the good ones would allow the Mate to bring the ship in as a way to learn. Plowing through light ice the Captain I was with let the Mate run the ship with instructions to call under certain conditions.

 

[Lumber]

Question:

What do merchant vessels do for line handlers? When we come alongside, we have 6 lines with 4-5 ppl per line, plus a 3x part-ship ICs and a 3x part-ship safety officers, plus the Buffer and DeckO. That's already triple (quardruple?) the crew of a merchie!

Recommendation:

Switch to IMPs, no more need for cooks, stewards, and maybe even a storesman. Who needs morale?  ;D

Seriously though, I'm really curious as to who they're going to take out to get down to 165. I've sailed with that few, but it was just a cruise to St. John's an back.

Ditch the ping-bosns? Limited watchkeepers to the Decko, NavO and CISO.plus 3 trainees? No more phase 6 engineers? Only 1 pay clerk? 

For exercises/operations where you aren't expecting any combat, you could literally get rid the entire Ops room. If you're going on a constabulary mission like Op Carribbe where you need enhanced tracking and basic self defence, you could go with:

1 x ORO + 1 xASWC on a 1-in-2 rotation;
2 x Track Sup on 1-in-2 rotation;
2 x NESOP for Elisra in a 1-in-2 rotation;
And whatever you need for a minimum TAS team.

Look, I just cut the combat department in half.

 

[NavyShooter]

Minimum TAS team: 
3 in OPS + CSE team (4 pers) in Towed Array comp't, but they're not closed up all the time.

 

[OldSolduer]

I'm a land lubber but it looks like some Good Idea Fairy has reinvented "do more with less".

 

[Nuggs]

You can drop about 10 Nav Comms

 

[Occam]

You can drop about 10 Nav Comms

Until the first time your internet, DWAN, CSNI or any other network link craps the bed...

And who are you going to get to configure radio equipment and circuits?

 

[Kirkhill]

You navy guys seem to spend a whole lot of time baling, compared to the civvies.  Maybe you would be better off finding builders whose boats didn't leak.  >

 

[Nuggs]

Until the first time your internet, DWAN, CSNI or any other network link craps the bed...

And who are you going to get to configure radio equipment and circuits?

The other 7 or 8 Nav Comms.

Speaking as a Nav Comm, it's an over staffed section.

 

[Occam]

The other 7 or 8 Nav Comms.

Speaking as a Nav Comm, it's an over staffed section.

Even with just one on the bridge, and one in the CCR, you need 6 to stand 1 in 3.  Throw in one for SNC.  What do you do when TG Tactical and the VHF are both squawking at the same time?  Maybe throw in a little fleet manoeuvring?

And down in the CCR...not sure how one person is going to do messages, configure equipment, manage servers and networks, and everything else.  What classes of ship have you sailed in?

 

[Nuggs]

Frigates 280s and submarines.

Don't get me started on Nav Comms on the bridge. Fleet manoeuvring and VHF should be taken by the 2nd 3rd 4th OOW anyway. Hell a MARS 4 officer has more training and experience with them then a 3s Nav Comm anyway.

TG TAC? I'd worry about the cct if it wasn't always and argument with the OOW about what the signal meant or how to interpret it anyway. Or that it differs from what was passed over chat to OPs.

Put the SNC on watches with the CISO.

If you have a CISO / SNC on watches then do you really need a WSUP?

Keep the SHOW. Keep one bridge body. 2 more in the CCR.

Plus the ISA.

That gives you 10. You still have bridge manning. You still have 2 junior bodies in the shack to run BDCST / RSS / InterShip. You still have SHOWs to setup / TS ccts, and liase with OPS. And you still have an on call day working ISA to react to IT issues, who can be assisted by the two Jr bodies in the shack for menial bits, cause God knows the Navy rarely copies BDCST or does RSS unless it's WUPS or training.

I've sailed 1 in 3 with 9 bodies on a frigate. It was busy but can definitely be done.

 

[Occam]

Well, I'll defer to your opinion as your experience is more recent than mine...but I can tell you that there is certainly the potential for things to get a lot busier in the CCR.  Imagine reverting to completely manual circuit setups.  We're hoping to avoid that, but I wouldn't bet money either way.

 

[Nuggs]

I wouldn't necessarily defer to me as I've been gone from skimmers for awhile. But as a trade I will maintain:

- That our bridge bodies are next to useless except to maintain the bloat that already exists in bridge manning. In the modern environment visual signals are next to dead. The signalman need to let it die. As well VHF should belong to the OOW.

- The 3 junior bodies in the CCR are very underutilized. Unless your running a TGEX copying BDCST and grading InterShip they won't get utilized fully. And you'd be hard pressed to find a shack in the fleet that could actually run the 3 ccts and maintain it for any length of time. We haven't forced the units to maintain those skills very well.

 

[donaldk]

Until the first time your internet, DWAN, CSNI or any other network link craps the bed...

And who are you going to get to configure radio equipment and circuits?

When I was on IRO, 3 of the NavComms were IT, remainder were mostly trainees not counting the PO1, PO2, and the MS.  Alongside it was sweet having a NavComm section of 30 strong, because it meant as the OOD you had one on the duty watch if that priority message needed to be chopped out (in its last days of being seaworthy in the few days before going out).  Now having a Combat Dept of 60-80 going to sea for a simple FISHPAT is quite a waste (especially if the damn gun isn't even fitted), but a TGEX with staff onboard is a different story (and we don't do enough of them as it is).

Now having my ET shop 60% under-manned SUCKED - it was a miracle to keep the lights on and IMCS from taking a complete shit.

I am hoping that the trial on MON is success literally as long as the risk assessments are done.  The MCDV concept, although hard on the core crew, is a valid concept (you have your minimum manning for the platform already made known, then add mission requirements on top, and also make sure you have a plan for ISSC port-stops - routine or emergency). 

 

[Lumber]

I wouldn't necessarily defer to me as I've been gone from skimmers for awhile. But as a trade I will maintain:

- That our bridge bodies are next to useless except to maintain the bloat that already exists in bridge manning. In the modern environment visual signals are next to dead. The signalman need to let it die. As well VHF should belong to the OOW.

- The 3 junior bodies in the CCR are very underutilized. Unless your running a TGEX copying BDCST and grading InterShip they won't get utilized fully. And you'd be hard pressed to find a shack in the fleet that could actually run the 3 ccts and maintain it for any length of time. We haven't forced the units to maintain those skills very well.

The Americans sail without NAVCOMMS (if they even have that trade?) on the bridge. As you said, the 2OOW/3OOW is more than capable of handling comms and tactical signals. We do a lot of it on our MARS training, and then never get to use it again.

Personally, for peace-time sailing, I'd be more than comfortable with a bridge that was only OOW, 2OOW, Bosn's Mate and Helmsman.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Actually Lumber, the US Navy used to have (as we did before they became navcoms) signalman as a trade until 2004. After that, in view of the reduced need for visual signals, it was decided to merge the trade and the training with the Quartermasters. A word of caution here: In the US Navy, QM is a trade with entry at the PO2 level (their PO2 is equivalent to our MS). That trade is responsible for all navigation and ship handling (meaning helm, not conning) of the ship and, now, all the communications on the bridge. In the US, this is not done by officers.

As for tactical comms, they are usually done by the Combat information specialists in the CIC, then passed to the bridge as instructions after "decoding". That explains why the Americans are sometimes a little slower than we are at maneuvering.  ;D

 

[Lumber]

That trade is responsible for all navigation and ship handling (meaning helm, not conning) of the ship and, now, all the communications on the bridge. In the US, this is not done by officers.

As for tactical comms, they are usually done by the Combat information specialists in the CIC, then passed to the bridge as instructions after "decoding". That explains why the Americans are sometimes a little slower than we are at maneuvering.  ;D

'Curious then. Either the USN has changed their methords or the Arlegih I sailed on did it a bit differently. When we did manoeuvres on RIMPAC in 2010, they appointed one of the 2nd JOODs (the most junior) as TacO (Tactical Communication Officer), the JOOD as ConnO, and the OOD just kind of watched. When a tacsig came in, the TacO would decipher it, then pass the station/formation down to CIC.  Then, both CIC and the bridge would calculate a relvel solution (but if I recall CIC only got it right about 50% of the time...). Then we would manoeuvre.

The QM did the same thing we saw him do all the time. Watch movies in his shack and appear every once in a while to take a GPS fix and put an entry in the log (no OOW notebook, I found).

In any case, they had a much smaller bridge team as well. From what I remember, it was a team of 5: OOD, JOOD, Helmsman, Bosnsmate and QM. There may have been 1 more but it's been a few years...

Anyways, one of the ways I can see this whole crew reduction thing working is for the ship to realize that if you're only doing things in the  day time, you don't need a full 1-in-2 watch rotation. You can change a lot of postions to day workers and therefore have only 1 watch.

When we were doing trials back in fall 2014, ppl were freaking out because we couldn't find a 2nd EWS, until I argued that since all of our trials were taking place during the day, we would stand down the EWS position, and just have that particular member show up in Ops whenever there was a trial going on. You don't need an EWS to baby sit the NESOPs on the mid-watch when nothing.is.happening.

Apply that logic to all of the difference positions and you can cut down significantly. Ramp up for deployed Ops.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

'Curious then. Either the USN has changed their methords or the Arlegih I sailed on did it a bit differently. When we did manoeuvres on RIMPAC in 2010, they appointed one of the 2nd JOODs (the most junior) as TacO (Tactical Communication Officer), the JOOD as ConnO, and the OOD just kind of watched. When a tacsig came in, the TacO would decipher it, then pass the station/formation down to CIC.  Then, both CIC and the bridge would calculate a relvel solution (but if I recall CIC only got it right about 50% of the time...). Then we would manoeuvre.

I was thinking as the ordinary "on-watch" situation, not planned heavy maneuvering periods. 

Anyways, one of the ways I can see this whole crew reduction thing working is for the ship to realize that if you're only doing things in the  day time, you don't need a full 1-in-2 watch rotation. You can change a lot of postions to day workers and therefore have only 1 watch.

You mean become continental Europeans? All exercises during the day, with a break for lunch, then you need only one for each operational position; you have a small cadre of maintainers, that do nothing else as their day job, and at night, you just steam around with a watch of five.  ;D

BTW, people here have mentioned the MCDV core crew as an example, but in my mind (and that of many that were around at the time of transition, it did not live up to its billing in the engineering side as a result of the engineering lobby's efforts. Here's what I mean:

The MCDV's were supposed to have unmanned engine rooms controlled from MCR by operators only, with no repairs/maintenance at sea - all of it being done under the service contract. Emergency repairs at sea, if any, were to be the purview of the CERA and A/CERA, who were not supposed to be from the NESO trade. In theory, for a one in four rotation of operators, you would have had a crew of seven engineers: 4 Watchkeepers, CERA, A/CERA and one Electrician. Instead, the Engineers lobby refused to operate with a single WK and forced a "ER roundsman" on the whole scheme, increasing the size to 11, just because they could not let go of the concept of somebody walking through the engine room and checking things by hand once an hour.

Before any one crucifies me with examples where they "needed" these extra hands (and please remember the original concept behind the MCDV was: if anything fails, the operators shuts it down and we limp back in harbour without it to get it fixed), remember that the Brits are doing exactly that with the River class OPV's. Not only does it have a single operator up only for the engineering, but the actual controls are duplicated from MCR to the bridge and the engineer on watch sits his/her watch on the bridge with everybody else (very Star-Trekish  ).