The US Navy hasn’t got the ships and hasn’t got the men
Opinion by David Axe • 6h •
To keep pace with an expanding Chinese fleet, the US Navy is still clinging to an ambitious – but so far unrealised – plan to grow its front-line fleet from around 290 warships to at least 350.
But the Navy doesn’t have enough sailors to fully man the ships it has already – to say nothing of the extra ships it wants. Equally troubling, the manpower shortage means fewer sailors are doing the hard work of keeping ships in top condition during deployments. That could shorten the ships’ service lives, further delaying any fleet expansion.
Yes, the Navy has a hardware problem. But its people problem is far more vexing.
The Navy’s 2024 budget, which – incredibly – is still awaiting Congressional approval, authorises the service to have 347,000 active-duty personnel. But as of January, the service actually employed just 324,599 active-duty sailors – 269,628 enlisted and 54,971 officers. That’s a shortfall of more than 22,000 people, or seven per cent.
The manpower gap means more ships with incomplete crews. It takes 84,400 enlisted sailors to fully man all the fleet’s vessels. As recently as November, however, there were just 70,700 enlisted sailors at sea – a 16 per cent shortfall.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-us-navy-hasn-t-got-the-ships-and-hasn-t-got-the-men/ar-AA1qYvCu?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=f5255d8949f54cce8febf297518afe57&ei=124
