Report: Sailor shortage is undermining Navy’s ability to keep ships combat-ready
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| Senior Sailors can help train juniors |
Summary
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 were less prepared for their roles.
4. Inadequate training:
- Both officers and sailors described training for maintenance as inadequate.
- Initial skills training often does not cover troubleshooting, which is needed for repairs.
- There are concerns about the balance between classroom and on-the-job training.
5. Increased workload/fatigue:
- Personnel shortages lead to increased workload for available sailors, causing fatigue and low morale.
- This can negatively impact performance and has contributed to accidents.
6. Difficulties completing required maintenance:
- 63% of surveyed executive officers said it was moderately to extremely difficult to conduct repairs while underway with current staffing levels.
- Maintenance backlogs, especially mission-critical ones, have been increasing.
7. Recruitment challenges:
- The Navy is struggling to meet recruiting goals, exacerbating the personnel shortages.
These issues combine to create significant challenges for the Navy in maintaining combat-ready ships with the necessary personnel.
Report: Sailor shortage is undermining Navy’s ability to keep ships combat-ready
– San Diego Union-Tribune
The Navy doesn’t have enough skilled sailors to keep its warships combat-ready, according to the latest in a series of government reports that broadly question the fleet’s readiness at a time of growing military tension between the U.S. and China.
The new Government Accountability Office (GAO) study also says that the skilled sailors it does have regularly lack the parts they need to make repairs and upgrades. This has led many ships, including submarines, to cannibalize other vessels.
The report comes six months after the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer had to return to San Diego shortly after its deployment began due to ongoing maintenance and repair problems. The Navy also is struggling to maintain its littoral combat ships, 17 of which are based in San Diego.
In making its findings, the GAO surveyed the executive officers of 232 ships and met with leaders and sailors on 25 vessels, including four ships that are homeported in San Diego, the largest Navy installation on the West Coast.
The GAO said the sailor shortage mostly stems from the Navy’s efforts to reduce costs by closing Navy ship repair facilities and reducing the size of crews. The agency referred to an earlier report in which it found that 70,705 enlisted sailors were available to collectively operate aircraft carriers, surface ships and submarines in November 2023. That was 13,674 sailors below what the Navy said was needed. The problem is being exacerbated by the difficulty the Navy is having meeting recruiting goals.
The report added that some types of ships — including Ticonderoga-class missile cruisers – did not have enough sailors to operate safety. The GAO did not specify whether any of the three “Tico” cruisers based in San Diego fell into that category. The Cold War-era cruisers are being phased out but are still helpful in protecting aircraft carriers.
The GAO further said that some of the Navy’s maintenance guidelines are inaccurate and some are written in ways that are not easily understood. The agency said many younger sailors are not taught how to troubleshoot maintenance problems.
The chronic shortage of parts was an issue mentioned by executives and sailors on all 25 ships that the GAO visited.
“Sailors aboard a submarine we visited provided a list of 222 items removed from the submarine during a maintenance cycle and given to 17 other submarines to enable those ships to continue operations,” the report says.
The agency didn’t indicate whether it was talking about one of the four submarines that were homeported in San Diego.
The new report arrives at a time of upheaval in the Navy, which is trying to modernize its fleet and become better able to deal with evolving threats, especially in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. The GAO has scrutinized much of this and found many problems.
In particular, the agency reported that the Navy hasn’t been designing and building ships in an optimal way, especially when it comes to the new Constellation-frigate program, which is over budget and behind schedule. These so-called small combatants are needed to replace littoral combat ships, which have proved to have very limited capabilities and are more expensive to maintain than forecast.
The GAO also found that the Navy has failed to fully upgrade its public shipyards, which affects its ability to service ships. That problem has been compounded by the fact that the Navy is temporarily reducing the number of ships in the fleet so that it can put together enough money to build newer ships with a greater ability to work worldwide.
Originally Published:
Sailor Shortages and Lack of Training May Leave NavyShips in Disrepair
Description: Over the last 30 years, the Navy has assigned fewer personnel to ships. The goal was to reduce costs. But there have been concerns that fewer sailors has made it harder to maintain ships. And it could also have broader consequences for Navy readiness. We surveyed executive officers and visited some ships to learn more about this issue. GAO's Diana Maurer tells us more about this issue.
Related Work: GAO-24-106525, Navy Readiness: Actions Neededto Improve Support for Sailor-Led Maintenance
Released: September 2024
{Music}
[Diana Maurer:] Navy sailors are struggling and their ability to maintain and repair ships at sea and ships at port.
[Holly Hobbs:] Hi, and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for fact based, nonpartisan news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. Over the last 30 years, the Navy has assigned fewer personnel to ships. The goal was to reduce costs. But there have been concerns that fewer sailors has made it harder to maintain ships. And it could also have broader consequences for Navy readiness--that's the Navy's ability to have a well-maintained, combat-ready fleet needed to safeguard the U.S. We surveyed executive officers and visited some ships to learn more about this issue. Joining us to talk about a new report is GAO's Diana Maurer, an expert on military readiness. Thanks for joining us.
[Diana Maurer:] Thank you.
[Holly Hobbs:] So, Diana, maybe we can start with, what kind of maintenance are sailors expected to do?
[Diana Maurer:] So sailors are expected to keep the ship that they are on operational, up and running. So whether the ship is out at sea or whether it's at port--sailors on board that ship, they're doing the day to day maintenance of all the different systems on the ship. So weapons systems, radars, all the things that are necessary for life aboard the ship, they need to maintain those systems and they need to make minor repairs if something goes wrong. In many respects, you can think about how you maintain your car. There are simple things that you do on your car every single day to help hold off those major malfunctions or those major problems that can happen later on down the road. It's the same thing with a large Navy ship. The maintenance that the sailors are performing helps head off bigger maintenance problems down the road. So from that perspective, it's really important that the sailors have the time, the parts, and the training that they need to do those repairs and perform that maintenance.
[Holly Hobbs:] So are they actually able to make these repairs?
[Diana Maurer:] We found that all too often they've really struggled to be able to do that. And there are a variety of reasons. First and foremost, there aren't enough sailors to go around. So we knew from some of our prior work when we looked across the Navy for every six positions that the Navy says it needed aboard ship, it only had five sailors assigned. So right out of the box, you're only talking about five sailors to do the work that was designed for six. In this review, we got behind those numbers and found that when we looked at the number of sailors who were actually available for duty on a particular day, it was even less. So there's a significant sailor shortage, which hinders our ability to do the necessary work. We also found that all too often, the sailors were too junior for the positions and responsibilities that they were assigned. And that was in part because the more senior level positions were simply vacant. We also heard from sailors, as well as officers aboard ships, that they all too often did not have enough spare parts. And they were sometimes hampered by having poor or incomplete instructions on how to do the required maintenance or perform the necessary repairs.
[Holly Hobbs:] So you just hit on something I'm interested in. We did talk to executive officers and leaders on these ships. What did they tell us about this issue?
[Diana Maurer:] We heard a lot from the executive officers. So we surveyed the Navy's entire battle fleet. So 230 plus ships. We got a tremendous response rate. We heard back from over 90% of the executive officers. That's over 90% of the number two ranking officer across the Navy's fleet. And among other things, we asked them how difficult it was for sailors to perform the necessary maintenance and repair aboard ship. More than 60% of these executive officers reported that it was moderately or extremely difficult for their sailors to perform the necessary repairs and maintenance aboard ship. That's concerning. They also expressed significant concerns about lack of spare parts. 88% said it was moderately to extremely difficult to perform the repairs with the number of parts that they had on board ship. So there's significant part shortages. And over two-thirds had significant concerns about the training sailors received to perform the maintenance and the repairs that were necessary aboard ship. So a lot of concerns across a wide variety of topics.
[Holly Hobbs:] What about the sailors themselves? What did they tell us about their ability to make repairs?
[Diana Maurer:] So we heard quite a bit from the sailors as well. They were particularly concerned about the quality of the training that they received. Many of the sailors just flat out said that the training that they received was inadequate. They felt that there was too much reliance on classroom training. A lot of that training was via PowerPoint. They wanted to get more experience, more hands-on examples of what they would really be required to do once they were aboard ship. And when you have an inadequately trained sailor and there aren't enough sailors, then it's not surprising that maintenance and repairs can suffer when they're on the high seas or back in their port.
[Holly Hobbs:] One of the things that report talks about is a new IT system that's meant to help with this issue, or track what's needed on the ships. Is that actually going to help sailors manage maintenance better?
[Diana Maurer:] Well, the Navy certainly hope so. And we hope that the Navy is able to implement this. What we heard from sailors and officers is that right now aboard ship, sailors are relying on at least six different IT systems to track maintenance, to order new spare parts, and to record when they've completed maintenance. So you can just imagine their frustration when they're moving between all these different systems to talk about and report out on their day to day maintenance and repair responsibilities. Having a single system, which the Navy's in the process of developing, could be very helpful in addressing some of those inefficiencies.
[Holly Hobbs:] We're reporting on this issue now, but this is a problem that the Navy is aware of too. Is the Navy doing anything about it?
[Diana Maurer:] They definitely are. They certainly recognize that they're facing shortfalls and shortages in the number of sailors. So they're working on the recruiting end of that. They have some efforts underway to enhance their training. So, for instance, the Navy is trying to do more with online training, more training on demand, allowing sailors to be aboard ship and kind of pull up a laptop or tablet to get more information on how to fix things. But that's going to require them provide hardware, software, and improve or address the challenge of having sufficient internet bandwidth aboard ship. So there's a lot of things that they still need to do to carry out what they plan to do.
{MUSIC}
[Holly Hobbs:] Diana just told us that there are widespread concerns in the Navy about sailors' ability to complete maintenance and repairs on ships--including staffing shortages, training issues, and even the tracking of needed repairs. So, Diana, what more should the Navy be doing to address this issue?
[Diana Maurer:] Well, you know, the Navy has a slogan--Get real, get better. And it's what their leadership is doing to drive change right now. And so we think that the recommendations we have in this report fall squarely within the realm of getting real, helping them get better. So, for example, we recommended that the Navy do a better job of tracking the real numbers of sailors who are actually aboard ships to help them better understand the breadth and the depth of their sailor shortage. We also recommended that they take a more comprehensive look at the kinds of training that they're offering sailors trying to find a better balance between classroom training. Some of that is necessary, as well as the on-the-job training, in addition to shoring up the other training efforts that we talked about earlier. They can also do a better job of providing a better level of spare parts and the necessary number of parts that a particular ship needs, as well as doing a better job of providing the instructions that sailors need to perform the necessary maintenance and repair. So a number of recommendations that'll help the Navy get to better results.
[Holly Hobbs:] Last question. What's the bottom line of this report?
[Diana Maurer:] Right now, Navy sailors are struggling in their ability to maintain and repair ships at sea and ships at port. That's a problem, because it hinders the Navy's overall ability to maintain readiness and meet operational responsibilities. First and foremost, the Navy faces a problem with a shortage of sailors. It currently does not have the number of sailors that it needs. That's a problem for today. But it's also a problem for the future. The Navy wants to build more ships, but there are open questions about whether it will have the number of sailors it needs for the larger fleet it wants to build in the future.
[Holly Hobbs:] That was Dianne Maurer talking about our new report on the Navy's readiness. Thanks for your time, Diana.
[Diana Maurer:] Thank you.
[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and make sure to leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov.
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