Tune into swap ship...

Is the head line in this months (August) navy news. It goes onto say that entire crews will be swapped while on deployment over seas.
I'm not in the navy yet. But isn't saying hello/goodbye all part of the deployment.... any thoughts?


Black dog for a white monkey anyone?

 

Sounds like a cluster just waiting to happen. Wouldn't want to be in charge of movements on that one.

Probably won't happen once they realise how must it costs to send them all out and bring the guys back ... with all kit, etc.

SF

 

I'm involved in the whole ship's company swap, our main drip is that in a five month deployment we will only get one decent run ashore. Oh, and the comms fits we both have are different.
The biggest problem is having to try and get all your stuff packed and onto an aeroplane, it's amazing how much stuff you aquire over the years.

 

I managed to fit 1 large suit case, my kit bag, 2 big travel bags and my unifrom in one locker! It's bloody amazing!

Doesn't sound like a good idea, means drafty will be working over time huh?

 

We're not being drafted, we are just swapping platforms. So we take our ship's name to our new ship, and vice versa. This is so that ships can stay deployed longer. Another reason stated was that Jack doesn't like long deployments. However, when they stop LSSB in October/November ask Jack if he wants to deploy or remain alongside in Pompey. With my LSA at £600 ish a month I think I would like to go away, buts that my personnal preference.

 

So all these ships will be swapping names , the mind boggles , you could sail out as HMS Manchester & come back as HMS Exeter , just does'nt make any sense to me , or am I reading it wrong :roll: :lol:

 

No we are deploying down south on our ship then in 5 months we all come back to the UK to join the ship that our reliefs have just left. We keep our ships name on our new platform, until they bring our ship back then its all change again.

Welcome to PLR heaven.

 

Hate to be in charge of the BFPO mailing system :roll:

 

its called a roulemont, guys and most of the other services do it already....yes it's true, it's gonna be a cluster trying to keep 170 odd matelots together and getting on the same planes home and 170 coming the other way all of them either half pissed or still drunk from the night before getting to the dockside without falling out or falling in. The other point is ship's security whilst all this is going on.....step forward GSSR SPO teams, don't worry guys we'll be there as well ushering the new crew on board..........possibly with a cattle prod 8O

 

170 try 270 for a T42, one of the problems could be that where we are handing over, ie the F.I. where are they all going to stay.
Why would we need a GSSR SPO team, we can manage ourselves, besides the arming state in the F.I. precludes armed sentries.

 

Jesse - roulement may be done by the other services, but not at the expense of force structure which is what this is about. The idea behind it is not to meet harmony guidelines or reduce gapped billets it is to get away with even fewer DD/FF. Ship numbers in a major procurement are heavily influenced by permanant tasks (eg Armilla, WIGS etc). One task is pretty much counted as three ships (one on task, one in transit / work up / one in upkeep). The idea behind swap is to remove the one in transit which will lead to fewer ships and save procurement budget. Fine and dandy you might say, trouble is some bright spark will then pipe up that personnel costs are the biggest single factor in the operating budget, so they'll cut the perceived "over-manning". Then 2SL will point out that he can't man the number of ships that Fleet wants, so Fleet will have to do the same with fewer ships or cut the task. Sound familiar?

Then we start all over again getting smaller and smaller. This is a recipe for extinction.

 

I have been following this thread with some interest.

Surely this is not a great step from the days of Foreign Service Commisions, in those days ('60's), in Boats (have little knowledge of General Service), the Boat steamed out to, for example, Singapore, after 18 months there was a part crew change over when those members of the crew who wer either single or married unaccompanied, either flew or took another boat home, 12 months later the other original members of the crew went home by the same routes, being replaced by new people flown out from the UK, or crew from other Boats going home. I know that the Boats stayed on station longer with local refits and maintainance, I'm sure that someone else can give an idea of how long that would have been.

I can see that the change over of the whole crew will cause problems and expense, especially due to the relatively short periods of deployment in each case.

Did I read somewhere that they were also looking at part changeovers something along the lines of my second paragraph?

 

Go on then, I'll bite.....
Presuming, this ship-swap is gen (it's far too late for April 1st), whatever happened to phase drafting of ship's companies?
:?

 

Used to be considered unlucky to change the name of a ship.

SF

 

Hi,

I am sure this has been done before, 1960's maybe? Before my time anyway, but, the Tartar or Lynx are names that spring to mind.

I don't understand how all the Ships Name changing palava would work, that, in those days you just moved from one ship to another.

I would have thought that it would be better to keep the ship on station and swap a percentage of the crew at regular intervals, rather like we did on the Dili (NP2010) in the Falklands, drafted for 6 months.

However, I don't think the "fighting efficiency" of said war canoe would be enhanced by continuously drafting new personnell and expecting them to hit the ground running, takes a while to mould a crew.

Therefore the crews would have to be based on a working, floating, training ship of same class which was sat in dock enabling leave, RA's training, which seems to me to be a waste of a ship

Just a thought

Terry

 

This i think has been covered on another Forum,cant find it,Foreign Service commissions in the far east Bulwark for example,changed whole crews over,tho not in one big lump,Britannias, from my exchange broke down in Bombay,we flew to Bombay courtesy of Air India on Super Constellations but the way i read this is that you are swapping crews with another ship,unless ive read it wrong,which just does`nt make sense.

 

I can understand it when the ships company transfer from one ship going into refit onto the same class of ship coming out of refit yet the ships keep their own identity. But taking the ships name as well would be very confusing - surely the pennant numbers would have to change also. What if the class of ships are different (batch 1/2/3 etc)- chaos would ensue imho. Janes fighting ships would need constant changes? :?

and what if your pit prior to transfer was a good one (ie in a quiet part of a gulch and not in the mess square) and some cnut beat you to it on the new ship...argh :roll:

 

Don't worry, EDS can provide a computer system to manage the whole process......i have complete faith!

 

If I had any faith that this might actually work, the mention of EDS has in the same sentence has had the same effect as fresh air at closing time.

We're doomed, we're all doomed!!!

SF

 

That is exactly what we did back in the seventies. I was on the Rhyl took her into refit in Gib and transferred lock stock and barrel to the Brighton.