Report: Sailor shortage is undermining Navy’s ability to keep ships combat-ready
Senior Sailors can help train juniors Summary Some key problems the Navy faces with having sufficient sailors to keep ships operational include: 1. Personnel shortages: - The Navy assigns fewer sailors to ships than required. As of November 2023, the Navy had about 16% fewer enlisted sailors on board ships than required. - Some ship classes like aircraft carriers, cruisers, and amphibious assault ships had far fewer sailors than needed to safely operate them. 2. Unavailability of assigned sailors: - Even sailors assigned to a ship are sometimes unavailable for duty due to illness, temporary assignments elsewhere, etc. - On one aircraft carrier, only about 83% of assigned sailors were actually available on a given day. 3. Lack of experience/preparation: - Sailors assigned to maintenance-heavy positions often have less experience than needed. - Engineering departments, which require more maintenance work, tended to have lower "quality of alignment" scores, indicating sailors we...