Could today’s smaller crews survive an attack? - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Could today’s smaller crews survive an attack?

A ship that’s suffered a debilitating blow can’t survive without well-trained personnel who know their ship and equipment.

At today’s reduced manning levels, however, sustaining the damage-control effort for more than a couple of days could be a difficult task.

It bears examining on the 10th anniversary of the crippling terrorist boat-bomb attack on the destroyer Cole, which produced mass casualties and triggered a desperate damage-control effort that began to ease only four days later, when the resourceful crew restored power.

Today’s crews have the benefit of the lessons learned from Cole, improved equipment and systems, and more realistic basic training in damage control. But the Cole’s crew numbered 294. Today’s destroyers sail with crews of roughly 245 — 19 percent to 32 percent smaller, depending on the model. If one of their ships suffered a similar blow, would they have the raw manpower needed to survive? Former commanding officers have mixed opinions. But it’s really a question, all said, of endurance.

“The crew could save the ship,” said retired Cmdr. Bryan McGrath, commander of the destroyer Bulkeley from 2004 to 2006. “The question is, how long could they sustain it?”

“I agree with that,” said retired Adm. Bob Natter, who commanded Fleet Forces Command’s predecessor, Atlantic Fleet, when Cole was struck. “When a ship is hit and seriously damaged … you really have to jury-rig things, and use a lot of brute force to make things work.”

“You can’t keep people up 24 hours a day forever,” said retired Cmdr. Jerry Provencher, who led the Spruance-class destroyer Elliot from 2001 to 2002. At the same time, it’s difficult to say how one of today’s lesser-manned ships would fare in a similar attack because “we’ve spent so much time developing a methodology, if you will, for how to avoid being in that predicament in the first place.”

The Cole stopped for fuel in Aden Harbor, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000, but went no further under its own power. The crew was completely isolated following the lunchtime attack, spending four harrowing days triaging the wounded, watching for a potential follow-on strike and struggling to keep the destroyer — lacking power and taking on vast amounts of water — from bursting at the seams and sinking. Stress was high.

The officer who commanded the ship said adequate manpower is critical to such a prodigious damage-control effort, and he doubts whether a lesser-manned ship could pull it off for long.

“I think it is going to be very questionable,” said retired Cmdr. Kirk Lippold. “While you may be able to train a crew that could respond and contain the initial damage, the ability of the ship to sustain itself for the extended period of time over days, if not weeks, like we had to do … that means you’re going to man the same number of watches for damage control, your flooding and shoring watches. You’re going to still have the same security requirements. And people are going to have to rotate through the watches quicker, or stand extended watches — which means they’re going to be more tired.

“We were already at some point operating at the limits of our physical and mental endurance,” Lippold said. “Especially after we almost lost the ship, Saturday night — Sunday morning. … And while I could exhort them, as the CO, that we had to keep going and we couldn’t give up, you’re going to reach a point where people physically cannot function effectively anymore. And at that point, you make mistakes, and you will lose the ship.”

In addition, Lippold pointed out, a reduced crew taking the same hit would have an even larger percentage of crew lost as casualties.

His former No. 2, now-Capt. Chris Peterschmidt, said it’s hard to say whether one of today’s ship crews could handle a similar blow. But he echoed Lippold’s concerns.

With 17 dead and 42 injured, 20 percent of the crew was out of action — and with healthy sailors called to serve as a “kind of walking blood bank,” further reducing the able-bodied pool of sailors, the strain was tremendous, Peterschmidt said.

Even Peterschmidt, a marathoner, found himself “overwhelmingly exhausted” after two full days.

“A crew can do a lot in a short amount of time,” said Peterschmidt, now the operations officer for 3rd Fleet. “It’s when you get to sustained damage control that you do need that manpower … to put people asleep, let people rest, recover and get on top of watch rotation.”

Peterschmidt said he has similar worries about the technologically advanced littoral combat ships and their twin crews of 40 — and he’ll become deputy commodore of the West Coast LCS squadron in January.

“Boy, such a small crew,” he said. “I worry that they could handle something short term, but it’s that sustained-damage-control piece that it’s hard for me to imagine a crew that size to be able to do, to keep putting up the effort necessary for multiple-day kind of casualty control.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and Fleet Forces Command’s Adm. John Harvey both say they want to escape the efficiency-focused “optimal manning” of the past decade and beef up crews. Roughead has singled out destroyers as one of the ship classes that lost too many sailors. Harvey told Congress in July that he thinks the fleet’s manning issues can be fixed by 2012, a step Lippold said he welcomes.

In a January blog post, Harvey said the phrase “taking risk” was often employed as a euphemism for doing more with less. But, he added, “What really occurred in some instances was we did more, but we did it less well and we lowered our standards.”

In a comment provided by his spokesman, Harvey said today’s ships crews can effectively control damage.

“Damage control is a core competency of our ships and sailors. Every ship we deploy, including DDGs, receives the necessary manning, training and equipment to execute that core competency.”