Sea Swap = More Bang for Your Buck

[Herman Hum]

Sea Swap = More Bang for Your Buck
DefenseTech (http://www.defensetech.org/)

For decades, the Navy has assigned two crews apiece to its ballistic missile subs, or "boomers". One crew is out at sea in the sub while the other is training and resting back home. The idea is that double crews let you squeeze more sailing days out of your ships. Boomers are ideally suited because they sail on rigid schedules that let you plan rotations far in advance.

In 2004, with the fleet shrinking and ships in high demand on the Pacific and in the Persian Gulf, the Navy launched a program to double-crew several destroyers. The ships stayed at sea while crews flew out to man them on six-month rotations. This saved months of sailing time by eliminating the need to bring a ship home just so the crew could rest.

The program, called Sea Swap, was a qualified success. Crews *****ed about losing that sense of ownership that comes with being a ship's sole crew. Morale was an issue. But in operational terms, Sea Swap worked: three destroyers could do the work of five by staying on station longer, avoiding long ocean transits and saving on wear and tear.

The Navy announced two weeks ago that it is ending Sea Swap as an experiment. It will study the results and decide whether and how to apply the lessons learned to future classes of ships like the LCS and DDG-1000 (formerly DD(X)).

pcs.jpgIn the meantime, the Navy's smallest fighting ships have permanently adopted a Sea Swap model. Once upon a time, the eight-ship class of coastal patrol boats (PCs) was scheduled for disposal, but now they're in high demand in shallow "green" waters like those of the Persian Gulf, as I write in the current National Defense Magazine:

Last year, recognizing the utility of these craft in green waters, the Navy halted all efforts to dispose of the remaining boats and even began negotiations with the Coast Guard to take back transferred PCs. The Navy moved two West Coast-based boats to Little Creek, a move that consolidated all operations and training at the Virginia base. At any given time, three boats are at Little Creek for drydocking and training while the rest remain forward deployed. Thirteen 30-person PC crews that are based at Little Creek fly out to the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, on six-month rotations.

Sea swapping effectively nearly doubles the size of your fleet without adding any new hulls. Expect the future Navy to do with all its ships what it has done with boomers, destroyers and PCs, cheaply turning 300 ships into 500.

[Ivan Rapkinov]

Freamantle in West Oz is one of the Sea Swap stations - the state government loves it because cashed up drunk Americans come here to get fleeced :D

[Herman Hum]

It would certainly be interesting to learn how the USN SSBNs were seemingly able to make the concept work, though. They've been running Blue / Gold crews for decades. There was a thread on SZO about it, but I can't seem to find it. :(

[Herman Hum]

Despite success, Navy unlikely to continue crew swap effort with destroyers

By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot (http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=107487&ran=81134)
July 13, 2006

NORFOLK - The three overseas crew swaps aboard the Norfolk-based destroyer Gonzalez during the past 17 months have been successful, the program's leaders say.

Every indicator from the "Sea Swap" experiment - including efficiency, crew morale and the added time the ship is able to remain at sea - has been positive for the 320-member crews rotated aboard every six months, Rear Adm. Mike Nowakowski said.

A study by the Center for Naval Analyses concluded that using the swap program would save $1.4 billion initially, then $700 million annually for the Arleigh Burke-class of destroyers alone.

Yet it is unlikely the Navy will continue crew swapping with destroyers, said Nowakowski, the outgoing commander of the Surface Forces Atlantic.

Exchanging crews on ships the size of the Navy's 62 Burke-class destroyers is just too complex, he said.

Destroyers have intricate fire control systems that include torpedoes, deck guns and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Not all crew members are trained on each system. Sea Swap is best used on smaller ships, with fewer crew members, Nowakowski said, or those that have been designed with crew swaps in mind.

"I don't think we will be in the business of actually doing one-for-one swaps anymore, and I don't think" it will be used on a destroyer, Nowakowski said in an interview before turning over his command to Rear Adm. D.C. Curtis, formerly with the 6th Fleet.
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The experiment was designed to see whether the Navy could get more bang for its bucks by keeping ships at sea for 18 to 24 months, while sticking to traditional six-month deployments for the crews.

Two West Coast ships, involved in the experiment as early as 2002, became the subject of a congressional inquiry when returning crews suggested the extended deployments might shorten the life of ships and cause sailors to shorten their careers.

They complained of lost liberty port calls, delays in flying sailors from San Diego to Australia, or Singapore, where crews traded places, and the additional training and work required under Sea Swap.

Yet changes made in time for the Gonzalez's deployment-it is scheduled to return from the Persian Gulf in August-corrected much of what was wrong with the program, according to the Navy.

Crews from two sister ships in Norfolk, the Laboon and Stout, which rotated aboard the Gonzalez during the experiment, were docked next to each other so they could become familiar with each other's ships. Each crew left the ship better than it found it.

Providing them liberty in a Mediterranean port, before and after their six months of duty, proved beneficial as well.

"Gonzalez is the icing on the cake," Nowakowski said.

Except for two one-week periods when the crews swapped out, Gonzalez remained at work. Staying at sea meant it didn't have to keep spending the added time making the 18-day, one-way transit to the 5th Fleet area from Norfolk, or the 30 days it usually takes for a sister ship to reach it from San Diego.

The Navy's next plan is called "multi-crewing."

With multi-crewing, there might be five ships deployed to the 5th Fleet, with eight crews rotating aboard them. Each crew would be without a ship for a period of time and stay ashore at a readiness, or training center.

In addition, only smaller ships with more manageable sizes of fewer than 100 people would be used. Such a concept is already being used on the coastal patrol boats, called PCs, which are 170 feet and have 28 crewmen aboard.

The Center for Naval Analyses, in its study of the Sea Swap program for Burke-class destroyers, also estimated what the program would do for the emerging fleet of Littoral Combat Ships, designed for a 40-person crew and for coastal operations in shallower water.

There would be a one-time cost avoidance of roughly $14 billion and a $500 million annual savings, according to a November 2005 update of its study.

The cost avoidance comes from building 56 ships, rather than 106 that would be needed to provide the same amount of presence at sea. Yet using a 56-ship fleet, with 72 crews that take turns manning them, would provide an at-sea equivalent of 106 ships and crews without using Sea Swap, according to the analysis.

A similar concept also might work with the aging fleet of guided-missile frigates, Nowakowski said. The frigate is expected to disappear from the active fleet by 2016 and entirely from the Reserve fleet by 2021.

[Boats]

Apples and oranges...sea swap meant the ship stayed in the oparea, and did not return to homeport. Means the ship is not receiving much needed repairs, and the crew(s) get beat up on sea duty. Not to mention, the rice bowl issue: if the ship has to be repaired, chances are good that it will happen in a foreign port. This is "food off the table" of American workers. Ugly political football to be tossed around.

Subs ALWAYS return to their home port. The crew that was inport, does a lot of the logistics (stores and the like) and takes care of the onload. The other crew has a few housekeeping chores to do upon return, and then go into training cycle.

Sea Swap is a bad idea for surface vessels...real bad. And the sailors hated it.

Byron

[VCDH]

I suppose it beats being deployed for a year :)

I once did a 6 month stretch once and that was pretty bad. Wasn't it Indy that did the year long deployment before she was de-commissioned?

Part of the problem with the 300 ship navy is that there is nowhere near the number of vessels available to keep the same amount of presence. In an era where retention is such a problem because of the extended deployments, Sea Swap is a cheaper alternative than removing the boat from the theater and steaming it all the way back to CONUS.

It costs much less to fly a crew to the boat than to bring the boat back. This sort of thing has been going on for years with Merchant Ships.

As for refits, there obviously has to be a higher standard of shipboard maintaince for warships (which use pre-planned maintaince for obvious reasons). But with less combat ships to go about refit times are going to suffer anyway.

Sea Swap is about two things, a) money (isn't it always) and b) keeping the trained personel that the Navy already has (the more important of the two)

An arguement could be made that the LCS assists in the Sea Swap program. Smaller crew and less high end weapons/sensors means a lower security risk that can allow boats to be refitted in friendly foreign shipyards.

Later
D

[Boats]

"Smaller crew and less high end weapons/sensors means a lower security risk that can allow boats to be refitted in friendly foreign shipyards"

You think? Yah, I guess so, a crappy little ship that can't defend itself, or cause a lot of harm, yeah, I wouldn't exactly call that a high value asset either, except for one thing, Dale: The Flag, that flies from the mast, or the stern. Can you say, "Pueblo"?

No offense, but that wasn't exactly the best spin to put on the LCS, podna.

Byron

[VCDH]

No offense, but that wasn't exactly the best spin to put on the LCS, podna.

No offense taken, and you're right, this isn't the best spin on the LCS. But in this case I was talking about the whole navy using the LCS as the example.

Let's keep in mind that the Navy is attempting to save money by trying to apply many of the same practices that the merchant navy has been doing for years. The whole idea here is to save money, but only time will tell if it works for a governemnt organization.

Later
D

[Boats]

You save money by changing the design, build, and procurement process, NOT by building a ship that is a sitting duck that any raghead with a Silkwork battery can blow right out of the water. And best not pray that the LCS is as lucky as that Israeli FFG.

Byron