So, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the modular, whiz bank, high tech wonder that manages to cram all the weaponry of a corvette into a hull the size of a frigate*, is heading out to sea on its 1st deployment, and they had to add an additional 20 crew to the nominal compliment of 75, an increase of 27%, in order not to overwork the crew to the point of uselessness. (see also here and here):
Good said Freedom’s 20 extra sailors would sleep in two 12-rack berthing modules, about the size of shipping containers, which will ride in the ship’s multiuse mission spaces. While the 75 core crew members will stay in the ship’s integral berthing spaces — which include double-tall racks, rooms of no more than eight sailors, and a head and shower to each berthing area — the VBSS sailors’ lodging will be more like those of sailors on a destroyer, he said.
Note that these spaces will not have heads or showers, and that the multiuse mission spaces are intended for the addition of capabilities to the platform for modular upgrades.
It seems to me that we are seeing the US Navy’s fetish on getting the number of crew on ships down coming back to bite them in the ass, much as it did with the now-canceled Zumwalt class (an overview here).
In any case, this yet another example where, to paraphrase Commander Salamander, truth trumps PowerPoint slide thinking.
Not only does this show an increase in crew costs, it also reduces the “flexibility and modularity” which was supposed to be the primary justification for the program, because some of those “plug and play” spaces must now be occupied by additional crew.
These problems are in addition to the cost overruns and schedule slippage that the program is seeing, of course.
*A corvette is a lot smaller than a frigate.