Crew Comfort

A couple of recent discussions hit on a common theme – that being that WWII ships packed a lot more weapons and sensors/fire control in a given ship size than modern ships do.  One of the reasons suggested for that was the greater degree of crew comforts that modern ships offer.  I don’t think that’s the entire explanation but it’s certainly part of it.  Today’s berthing is larger and more comfortable.  Lounge areas are provided.  Sanitary and wash facilities are more extensive and expansive.  And so on.  These amenities require additional deck space and internal volume.  I also suspect, but don’t know for sure, that food storage spaces are larger today.

Why do today’s ships have larger crew comfort facilities?

The common answer, which is generally given as an article of faith, obvious to anyone but an idiot, is that today’s sailor has to have greater comforts or else the Navy couldn’t meet its manning needs in a volunteer navy.  Sailors just wouldn’t put up with any less comforts than are currently provided.

Is this true?  Were yesterday’s sailors tougher?  Are today’s sailors softer and unable to withstand the harsher aspects of life at sea?  Are comforts the only way we can entice young men to a life at sea?

Are we missing something in this little story?

I think we are.  What we’re missing is deployments. 

Today’s deployments run 6-12 months with 8-10 being quite common.  In the not very distant past, deployments ran 2-6 months with 6 months being the extreme maximum.

Interestingly, “deployments” during WWII were generally very short because, as we discussed, they weren’t deployments – they were missions (see, "Deployments or Missions?").  Ships would go out on a mission, execute the mission, and return home.  Missions would typically be a few weeks.  Even submarine patrols were only 4-8 weeks or so.

Do you see where this is going? 

People can put up with a lot for a relatively short period.  The problem arises when we ask people to put up with a lack of comforts for months on end, pushing a year.

The solution, of course, is to execute missions not deployments.  A mission is 1-4 weeks.  A 1-4 week mission doesn’t need all the comforts of an 8-12 month deployment.  Sailors will put up with some crowding and discomfort for a short period especially when they’re doing something worthwhile, like a specific mission.  It’s when the ship simply sails endlessly in circles on a deployment that the crew recognizes as worthless, that comforts become increasingly important.

There’s another aspect of modern deployments that impact crew comforts and that is adventure.  The old slogan was, “Join the Navy and see the world”.  This included some epic and memorable liberty calls around the world.  Sailors could put up with cramped conditions while they relived and recovered from the last liberty and eagerly anticipated the next.

Today, however, liberty opportunities have been curtailed.  Many ports are off limits.  Those that are available are strictly supervised.  Sailors are encouraged to keep a low profile, exercise moderation and, preferably, participate in volunteer school building rather than engage in the type of liberty that becomes the stuff of legend.  In fact, it goes well beyond “encouragement” to the point of threats and punishment.  Heaven help the unfortunate sailor who overindulges or has a run-in with local police.  Ship’s Captains are judged on how meek and mild their crews are during liberty.  That’s a sad commentary.  Let’s loosen the reins and let sailors enjoy the world and liberty calls.

There’s also a practical aspect to crew comforts.  More expansive crew comforts require more internal ship’s volume, more infrastructure for networks and entertainment cabling, electronics, and power.  In short, the greater the crew comforts, the larger and more expensive the ship must be.  Now, let’s be realistic, the increase, while real, is not terribly significant compared to the overall size and cost of the ship but it does add up.

Consider the ship and crew size of the LCS versus the WWII Fletcher. 

The Fletcher class was 380 ft long, 2500 ton displacement, and had a crew of 329.

The Freedom class LCS with a crew of only 65-80 (with module and helo detachment) would, you’d think, be a fraction of the size of the Fletcher and yet it’s the same 380 ft long and, incredibly, has a displacement over 50% greater at 3900 tons.

I’m not saying that the LCS’ greater size relative to the crew size is just due to crew comforts but it is a part of it.  More to the point, it illustrates that the Fletcher was able to operate with a crew size around five times greater than the LCS because it didn’t go on endless, nearly year long deployments.  The crews would put to sea, execute a mission that they clearly saw as important, and return to port.

Fletcher - Five Times the Crew

Okay, you say, all this may be true but, really, where’s the harm?  Well, aside from the impact on ship size and cost, admittedly not all that great compared to the overall size and cost, the lethal consequences of crew comforts were made abundantly clear during the recent McCain and Fitzgerald collisions.  The reports painted a vivid picture of survivors trying to battle their way through loose debris to escape flooding berthing compartments and having to fight through an obstacle course of lockers, couches, exercise bikes, TV screens, game consoles, etc.  Every physical comfort added to a ship is a potential life-threatening obstacle in a damage/rescue scenario.

One of the things that ships used to do was to strip down for battle when war was declared.  All the loose items were removed from the ship and nothing was left that wasn’t essential for combat.  The problem today is that we’re always a split second from combat even though we aren’t, technically, at war.  We’ve had ships blown up in port, attacked with missiles while on patrol, run aground, and severely damaged in collisions.  Given that environment, our ships should be stripped for battle all the time.

The conclusion from this discussion is that we can design less comforts into a ship and, thus, a smaller ship if we would simply limit the deployments to more reasonable lengths or, as suggested in the recent post, no deployments – just missions.

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