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Story by Diana Correll<\/strong><\/p>\n The Navy’s manning shortages are curbing the service’s ability to repair its ships while at sea, according to a watchdog report released Monday.<\/p>\n Sixty-three percent of executive officers – a ship’s second-in-command – surveyed reported that insufficient manning made it “moderately to extremely difficult to complete repairs while underway,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday.<\/p>\n At-sea basic maintenance and repairs are critical to ensuring a ship can carry out its mission, according to the GAO.<\/p>\n But Monday’s report, based on interviews of sailors and leaders across the fleet, reveals that basic maintenance duties and repairs are hindered not only by manning shortages, but also by inaccurate Navy guidelines and substandard training.<\/p>\n As of late last year, the Navy was lacking nearly 14,000 enlisted sailors to keep its aircraft carriers, surface ships and attack submarines properly manned, according to the GAO.<\/p>\n The watchdog also found that aircraft carriers, cruisers and amphibious assault ships did not have enough enlisted sailors assigned to them to meet requirements for safe operations as laid out by the Navy Manpower Analysis Center.<\/p>\n Navy should be \u2018offended’ by its own maintenance and manning faults, admiral says<\/p>\n “The Navy has not provided crew levels sufficient to meet the ship maintenance workload,” one sailor told GAO investigators.<\/p>\n This results in a smaller crew having to do more work, compounding the stressors of ship life.<\/p>\n “More capable sailors that perform a lot of maintenance get burned out and tired of taking up the slack for other sailors and leave the Navy to do the same work for better pay and working conditions,” another sailor said in the report. Sailors also aren’t always prepared for their jobs aboard ships, and those serving in maintenance-heavy roles “may be less experienced than other sailors on that same ship,” according to the GAO.<\/p>\n Training for sailor-led maintenance is also insufficient, sailors told the watchdog.<\/p>\n Sailors attend A school after boot camp to get initial training with instructors and computers, but some interviewed by GAO questioned how well A school prepared them for their shipboard duties.<\/p>\n “Specifically, sailors expressed dissatisfaction with both the quality of training – whether it prepares them to perform maintenance aboard ship – and the format in which training is delivered,” the report said.<\/p>\n The Navy is working to enhance sailor-led maintenance training through its Ready Relevant Learning initiative, which involves distributing videos of sailor-led maintenance to schoolhouses, according to the report. Defense News<\/a><\/p>\n Opening the floodgates to bottom-scoring recruits will do nothing to alleviate these critical issues, as most will not qualify for an “A” School in the first place. That Big Navy is failing in providing relevant initial training at the schoolhouse in indefensible. The Navy needs skilled mechanics and technicians to operate and maintain its vessels, not half trained “A” School grads and more Deck Division non-rates to chip paint.
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\n“Navy executive officers and sailors told GAO there were widespread concerns about sailor training,” the report states.<\/p>\n
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\nThe GAO offered several recommendations, including that the service improve the “quality of information on the number of ship’s crew available for duty” and guarantee that personnel numbers and skill levels for certain kinds of maintenance are tailored for specific ships and classes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nNavy Recruiting Soars!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"