RN crews could swap ships after each deployment

The Royal Navy has today revealed plans which could see crews swap ships after each mission. Trials have already begun with HMS Exeter and HMS Edinburgh and could be rolled out to every crew and ship.
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This hasn't been thought out AT ALL !?!

Where, pray, are all my gizits going to be hidden?

 

In some ways this would ensure that ships were utilised to their full extent and that matelots shared out the sea time more fairly.
However belonging to a ship carries a lot of pride. I was on Manchester and we had a brilliant crew from the Captain down. Now I'm sure that I would not have wanted to exchange my position on Manchester with my opposite number on Southampton or some other ship. I feel that my opposite number would probably have felt the same.
Matelots are usually proud of their ship, would this pride be removed if they were changing cap ribbons every six months?

 

It happened earlier this month with the minehunters in the Gulf, too:

Four Ships, Two Crews...

 

Swings and roundabouts, as ever.

My main concern is the sense of ownership and the impact that breaking that has on ships husbandry and maintenance throughout the period.

I prefer the HM system of rotating out a portion of the ships company at regular intervals, for a period of leave and training in UK. That retains ownership but it bears a high manpower overhead with a ships company of around 130%.

In principle sea swap should allow better hull utilisation, but there are softer CLM issues which could go awry.

 

It is interesting that the first 2 ships are not the same - although I understand that a sceond trial involving 2 T23s is on the cards.

I share the concerns about loyalty to a cap tally - but a sort of (not use of words sort of) thing used to happen in the days of the Leander garage refits. I suppose that ultimately the RN is getting so small that the Flotilla becomes the basic unity - IIRC the 6FS was doing something sort of similar prior to the introduction of the squad.

From the view of Fleet Programming - its a fabulous idea.

 

Trouble is, while it looks good for PROGO at the minute, the thinking behind it will lead to even more cuts. Initially the MoD civil service scrutineers in Resource & Plans will use the logic to reduce future buys of ships where long-range deployments and directed tasks often drive total numbers of ships required (surprise surprise). Later, during yet another review of teeth to tail etc, some bright spark will point out that there are a very large number of shore posts for the number of ships we have and will therefore try and cut personnel numbers again. Vicious circle, recipe for extinction.

 

This is part of the Sea Swap trial.

There are 2 other T23s taking part in this. One is HMS Sutherland which is doing a 9 month middle east deployment swapping non squadded personnel with there equivelant in the same baseport area (where possible) for 30 days. The other is HMS Monmouth which is carrying out a 9 month global with no crew rotation

 

I think that this is a good idea, HOWEVER in reality i dont think that it would work.
I mean how can you build up moral, rapport with the ships company and get that close knit community that takes time to build up, just for it all to be broken to pieces when a load of people leave/join the ship.

The good part of it though, is that if the ships company are horrible you can move to a decent ship with hard working people!

Each to their own i suppose!

 

:?: The idea is that EVERYONE swaps ship and there is nothing new about it. It used to happen between decommissioning and recommissioning ships during the days of 2 1/2 year commissions. An older friend of mine was involved in the complete change of ships' companies between a Guz based battleship and one from Pompey, all in the space of a day. A similar thing happened when entire ships' companies were sent out from the UK to take over ships on station in the Med and the Far East.

 

Another step on the slippery slope of reduced manpower, you can just see it happening 'Right boys and girls, we are just back from a six month deployment on HMS XX, we are handing over to the maintenance crew so off on 2 weeks leave and we are taking over HMS YY on return from leave for a six month deployment'

 

Are they talking about a complete swap as they just did with the minesweepers, or just swapping out elements of the crew like they did/do with HMS Scott?

Also couldn't it be possible to arrange things like they do on the bombers having a port and starboard crew? You'd be able to keep the "ship's pride" whilst still keep the ship at sea for the maxmium amount of time

If I'm just being stupid forgive me i join BRNC in a few weeks....

 

Didn't BRILLIANT miss them? (boom, boom)!

Seriously folks, this will, I believe, be a morale shrinker; as Slim says. It also assumes that all ships are identical and that all installed kit performs with no individual quirks and peculiarities. Well, do they/does it?

Ships will be able to stay on Station longer and save fuel and utilisation on deployment and recovery. Wasn't that time, though, vital for post work up consolidation and post op decompression?

 

This entire ships company change was tried in the 60s, it didnt work. They went on to a 30% crew change in the mid 60s and this seemed to work well

 

Well if its the whole of the ships company thatll be changing, what is everyone bellyaching about!!!
At least itd be a different change of scenary!

 

That's roughly what HMs do on long deployments. Can't remember which, but one is going to be away for a couple of years with that system.

 

Ownership, ships husbandry standards, the bonding/ decompression involved in getting on station and home after an Op, and the potential impact of the beancounters in Treasury a year or so down the line.

There are some benefits, but there are some big risks as well.

 

Hi ml2sjw - yes, it's a complete swap - in fact, the first crews have already swopped between Exeter and Edinburgh.

 

For what it's worth:

1. In 1957 I joined Cossack in Singapore. She had been manned up to come out of refit from Comus or one of the other C's which was going into refit. Worked fine except for having both ships' Chinese side parties (plus two others) fighting on our bridge when we arrived in Hong Kong.

2. In 1962 Highburton's people were sitting around in Chatham Dockyard doing nothing. We bussed down to Hythe and took out Clarbeston which was in reserve and ran her for some months before paying her off when Highburton's refit was (allegedly) finished. Worked fine.

Depends on leadership & the will to make it work I think.

 

On HMS Bulwarks first Commando Carrier Commission from 1960 to mid 61 the whole crew were changed over in Singapore, and as far as i know there were no problems whatsover. At the end of the day it comes down to the manpower that is available.