Force Structure: Navy Needs to Fully Evaluate Options and Provide Standard Guidance for Implementing Surface Ship Rotational Crewing
Published: 2004-11-10T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: The Navy has traditionally maintained overseas presence by deploying ships for 6 months. Rotating crews aboard ships that remain deployed for longer periods is an alternative the Navy could pursue to increase the utilization of ships. Senior Navy officials have also cited crew rotations as a way to reduce part of the Navy's plans for a larger force structure and reportedly free billions of dollars for other priorities. On its own initiative, GAO examined the Navy's efforts to evaluate and implement several rotational crewing options and the impacts of ship maintenance on extended rotational crewing deployments.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The Navy has initiated change by demonstrating that rotating crews aboard surface ships on extended deployments may be a feasible alternative to traditional 6-month ship deployments. To effectively institutionalize and implement change, best practices show that a comprehensive analytical framework provides useful information to decision makers. However, the Navy has not established such an analytical framework--consisting of formal measurable goals, objectives, and metrics--that could be used to assess the feasibility of various rotational crewing options and determine their impact on operational requirements, ship condition, and crew morale. Further, the Navy has not systematically collected or developed accurate cost data to perform complete cost-effective analyses. Absent such information, the Navy may not know the full impact of rotating crews on surface ships, the extent to which the various options should be implemented, or whether it is getting maximum return on investment. Because rotating crews on surface ships is evolving as an alternative, the Navy has not provided effective guidance when implementing the practice and has not systematically leveraged lessons learned. Effective guidance and sharing of lessons learned are key tools used to institutionalize change and facilitate efficient operations. While the Navy has well-established crew rotation policies and procedures for ballistic missile submarines that include appropriately documenting a ship's condition and turnover procedures for accountability, it has not provided comparable guidance to surface ships. As a result, the Navy unnecessarily risks repeating mistakes that could decrease warfighting effectiveness and crew morale. Furthermore, the impact of ship maintenance on the implementation of rotational crewing has not been fully assessed. Effective maintenance strategies help ensure ships can perform their missions without adverse impacts on crew morale. It is a challenge to ensure the mission capability of ships that are deployed for longer periods because most maintenance and repair is usually completed between 6-month deployments. While rotating crews has enabled the Navy to keep ships deployed for up to 24 months, the service has not fully examined all issues related to the best maintenance strategies that could affect a ship's condition and crew's morale. Absent effective strategies, the Navy risks degrading long-term ship condition and discouraging crew support for rotational crewing.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The Navy’s fleet of surface ships represents a significant capital  investment to provide the forward presence desired. The Navy is also  facing an affordability challenge as it invests in new ships, supports a high  pace of operations, and manages rising personnel costs. The Navy has  traditionally maintained overseas presence by using standard deployments  whereby individual ships and their permanently assigned crews are  deployed for approximately 6 months out of a 27-month cycle that  includes time for training and ship maintenance. Rotating crews aboard  ships so that the ships can remain deployed for a longer period is one of  many alternatives the Navy could pursue to increase the utilization or the  operational on-station days, or both, of Navy ships. Recently, senior Navy  officials have also cited crew rotations as one of the ways to partially  mitigate the need for a larger force structure and free billions of dollars for  higher priority areas, such as the capabilities needed to operate from the  sea when the United States is denied access to bases and ports abroad. As  such, it is prudent for the Navy to employ its ships in a manner that  maximizes its return on investment.
The Navy has rotated crews on ships in several ways, although its use of  this practice is not widespread and is still evolving. On its Ohio-class  Trident ballistic missile submarines, the Navy has used a “Blue-Gold” crew  concept since the 1960s, whereby two complete crews are assigned to a  single hull and rotate deployments. In the 1990s, the Navy’s Mine Warfare  Command used a concept whereby four crews rotated among three ships  throughout the deployment cycle. More recently, the U.S. Pacific Fleet has  been demonstrating the ability to rotate crews on some of its destroyers as  part of a “Sea Swap” demonstration project. Under this concept, there are  the same numbers of crews as ships, but the crews rotate for 6 months to  those ships that are forward deployed for extended periods of 18 months  or more. The Navy is also using this concept on its patrol coastal ships  operating in the Persian Gulf and the Blue-Gold concept to support the  high speed vessel experimental ship, the HSV-2 Swift.
We prepared this report under our oversight authority and are providing it  to you because of your oversight on defense issues. Recognizing the  Navy’s need to explore ways for improving the use of its surface ships and  its plan for employing rotational crews on several types of surface ships in  the current and planned force (appendix I provides a description of all  ships included in our evaluation), this report addresses the following  questions: (1) Has the Navy systematically evaluated the feasibility,  including the cost-effectiveness, of rotational crewing concepts for  existing and future classes of surface ships? (2) Have the Navy’s  experiences with rotational crewing been effectively implemented?  (3) How does ship maintenance affect implementation of rotational  crewing?
To assess whether the Navy has systematically evaluated the feasibility  and cost-effectiveness of rotational crewing concepts for existing and  future classes of surface ships, we reviewed rotational crewing studies  performed by and for the Navy, including a recent study by the Center for  Naval Analyses; compiled and analyzed sailor reenlistment data;  interviewed Department of Defense (DOD) and Navy Headquarters and  fleet officials; met with cost analysis experts in the government and the  private sector; and reviewed key acquisition documents and crew  employment plans. To assess whether the Navy has effectively  implemented rotational crewing on surface ships and leveraged lessons  learned, we conducted over 40 focus group meetings with rotational  crews; interviewed Pacific and Atlantic Fleet officials responsible for  personnel, operations, maintenance, and training; and reviewed Navy  Lessons Learned System instructions and queried the system to determine  relevant lessons recorded. We used the strategic ballistic submarine  community as a best practice based on its long-standing successful use of  rotational crewing. To assess how maintenance on ships homeported in  the United States might be affected by extended deployments, we  reviewed ship maintenance directives and instructions, reviewed ship  maintenance reports, and conducted focus group meetings with the three  crews on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers involved with the Sea Swap  destroyer demonstration project and several crews that had rotated on  patrol coastal ships.
While we did not validate the maintenance reports and sailor reenlistment  data used in this report, we discussed the data with DOD officials to  determine that the data were sufficiently reliable for our analysis. We did  validate the Navy Lessons Learned System data and determined the data  were sufficiently reliable for our analysis. We conducted our review from  July 2003 through July 2004 in accordance with generally accepted  government auditing standards. The scope and methodology used in our  review are described in further detail in appendix II.
subsections: section_title: Background
subsections: section_title: The Importance of Having a Forward Military Presence Overseas
paragraphs: Maintaining an overseas military presence that is prepared to deter threats  and engage enemies remains an enduring tenet of U.S. national military  strategy and priorities. For example, the National Military Strategy notes  that an overseas presence supports the ability of the United States to  project power against threats and support the establishment of an  environment that reduces the conditions that foster extremist ideologies.  The strategy also notes that keeping an overseas presence serves to assure  U.S. allies; improves the ability to prosecute the global war on terrorism;  deters, dissuades, and defeats other threats; and supports transformation.  The Chief of Naval Operations earlier this year underscored the continuing  importance of forward-deployed forces, noting “Our forward rotations  remain critically important to our security, to strengthening alliances and  coalitions, and to the global war on terrorism. But it is clear we must make  these rotations with purpose, not just to fill the calendar.”
section_title: Current Operational and Budgetary Pressures on Ship Procurement and Operational Accounts
paragraphs: In early 2001, the Chief of Naval Operations recognized the challenge of  accomplishing the Navy’s missions within its budget. In February 2001, the  Vice Chief of Naval Operations established a task force to explore force  structure options facing the naval service, noting that in order for  organizations to remain vital and competitive “they maintain their options  and seek innovative developments that may provide simpler, more  convenient, or less costly alternative solutions to their needs.” One of the  task force’s primary assumptions was that the Navy leadership  understands that there may be insufficient procurement funds available to  maintain current fleet size. Another assumption was that the demand for  naval forward presence would remain greater than the supply, regardless  of fleet size. Within a year, an operational studies group within the Office  of the Chief of Naval Operations noted that the need for alternative  crewing approaches might be necessary to sustain the pace of global  operations, especially in the global war on terrorism.
More recently, senior Navy officials have warned that budgets will remain  tight. In June 2004, the Secretary of the Navy stated that DOD will have  less money for recapitalization because the defense budget will not  continue growing at the rates it has in recent years. The Navy’s acquisition  executive has also noted that the Navy is employing multiple strategies  that eventually may reduce the number of ships, submarines, and aircraft  it purchases, saving taxpayer dollars as it seeks more effective ways of  employing its forces so that fewer of them can provide the capabilities  needed to accomplish assigned missions.
section_title: Rotating Crews Is a Part of Force Structure Assessment
paragraphs: One such effort that may enable the Navy to sustain a high pace of  operations within expected budgets involves the rotation of crews on and  off forward-deployed Navy surface ships. While the Chief of Naval  Operations stated earlier this year that the ideal fleet size would be about  375 ships, he also said that he is no longer willing to commit to any  specific number of ships until the Navy completes a new assessment of  ship requirements. The assessment, which started this year, will evaluate  the potential impact on force structure requirements from keeping ships at  sea for longer than standard 6-month deployments by rotating the crews  on and off. He noted the Navy’s recent experience with keeping two  destroyers on extended deployments, whereby these two ships provided  the presence overseas that is the equivalent of 8 to 10 ships on normal  deployment schedules.
subsections: section_title: Traditional Ship Employment Cycle Provides Limited Time in Theater
paragraphs: The amount of time a ship ultimately spends forward deployed in a theater  of operations is affected by several factors in its employment cycle. These  factors include length of a deployment, transit speeds and port calls, crew  training and certification, ship maintenance requirements, and maintaining  sufficient readiness for surging forces during nondeployed periods. The  result is that a ship homeported in the United States and deploying to the  Persian Gulf area for 6 months will normally spend less than 20 percent of  its time in theater and that the Navy would need about 6 ships to maintain  a continuous presence in the region over a 2-year period.
As part of the transformation efforts to increase the fleet’s operational  readiness and responsiveness, the Navy recently implemented a new  operational strategy—called the Fleet Response Plan—that changes the  manner in which it maintains, trains, mans, and deploys its ships. The  overall objective of the plan is to create a more responsive force by  sustaining a more level balance of training between deployments, instead  of dropping to minimum rates of readiness upon return from deployment  and then gradually rebuilding its state of readiness throughout a 12-month  training cycle that follows major maintenance of the vessel. The plan also  modifies long-standing forward presence policy of predictable, 6-month  deployments to predetermined regions. This flexible deployment concept  allows units that have attained high readiness to embark on deployments  of varied duration—but still generally no longer than 6 months—in  support of specific national priorities, such as homeland defense,  multinational exercises, security cooperation events, deterrent operations,  or prosecution of the global war on terrorism. These deployments provide  what the Chief of Naval Operations calls “presence with a purpose,” and  are intended to occur in less predictable patterns to keep potential  adversaries off guard.
section_title: Ship Crewing Options
paragraphs: In addition to the standard ship and crew employment cycle, the range of  Navy crewing options falls into four major categories: (1) Sea Swap,  (2) Horizon, (3) Blue-Gold, and (4) partial or graduated crew swapping.  Each of these options can be implemented in varying ways and may have  different advantages and disadvantages, but the Navy’s actual experience  with nonstandard crewing concepts on surface ships is limited.
Standard crew deployments use one crew per ship. Most of the  crewmembers are assigned to the ship for 4 years, and it is common for  crewmembers to deploy overseas on the same ship more than once.  Standard ship deployments occur once every 27 months for a period of  6 months of which the ship and the crew are on-station for 3 to 4 months,  depending upon whether the ship deploys from the east or west coast of  the United States. Most Navy ships and their crews employ the standard  crew deployment option.
The Sea Swap option uses the same number of crews as ships. Notionally  under this option, one of the ships deploys two, three, or four times longer  than the standard time by rotating crews every 6 months at an overseas  location. Ideally, all of the Sea Swap ships share an identical configuration,  so crew performance and capability are not degraded because of ship  differences. Because crews do not return to the ships on which they  trained, under a four-ship Sea Swap option, some crews could serve on  three different ships in just over 6 months and be expected to demonstrate  combat proficiency on each one. A limited number of destroyers and  patrol coastal ships have employed the Sea Swap option in recent years.
The Horizon option involves one or two more crews than hulls, such as  four crews for three ships or five crews for three ships. Crews serve for no  more than 6 months on ships that are deployed for 18 months or more.  Under a three-ship Horizon option, crews could serve on at least two ships  in just over 6 months and be expected to demonstrate combat proficiency  on each one. In addition, each crew would be without a ship for a period  of time and stay ashore at a readiness, or training, center. This crewing  option was employed on mine countermeasure ships during the 1990s.
The Blue-Gold option assigns two complete crews, designated “Blue” and  “Gold,” to a single ship. Most of the crewmembers are assigned to a ship  for several years, and it is common for them to deploy overseas on the  same ship more than once. Crew deployments would not exceed 6 months  and are often of much shorter duration. An advantage with this option  includes the crews’ familiarity with the ship. However, a disadvantage is  that the proficiency can degrade since crews sometimes do not have a ship  on which to train and must rely on mock-ups and simulators. The Blue- Gold option has been employed by the strategic submarine force and the  HSV-2 Swift.
Partial or Graduated Crew Swapping  Partial crew swapping has been employed on a limited basis. The most  notable use of this option involved the exchange of crewmembers  between a ship based in Japan with a ship based in the United States in  1999. A variation on this theme is when portions of a ship’s crew are  swapped out at regular intervals, for example, one-quarter of the crew  every 2 or 3 months.
section_title: Rotational Crewing Believed to Provide Forward Presence Benefits
paragraphs: The most significant advantage attributed to rotational crewing options is  the more efficient use of a ship in an overseas operating area. This is  accomplished by keeping the ship on extended deployments, ranging from  12 to 36 months or longer, while at the same time not increasing the crew’s  time away from home. Top Navy officials, including the Chief of Naval  Operations, believe that increased efficiencies from rotating crews enable  the Navy to perform the same number of missions with fewer ships or to  increase the number of missions with the same force size. For example,  the Navy’s acquisition executive stated that if the Sea Swap option is  employed on its next generation guided missile destroyer, the DD(X), the  Navy might be able to reduce requirements from 24 to 16 ships and apply  the savings toward the next generation cruiser.
Disadvantages often associated with rotational crewing include increased  infrastructure costs; deteriorating ship material condition and lack of  ready access to maintenance support while on extended deployment;  decreased readiness due to differences between ships; and decreased  quality of life and other sociological issues for crew members, including  the sense of less “ship ownership,” fewer port calls, and cultural changes.
section_title: Recent Sea Swap Destroyer Demonstration Project Assesses Feasibility
paragraphs: The Navy recently conducted a 2-year demonstration to determine if two  destroyers could (1) provide more deployment time on-station and  (2) maintain sailor quality of life while rotating crews. The Navy declared  the demonstration a success, stating that the ships operated well while  increasing their operational capability. In its report on the Sea Swap  demonstration project, the Center concluded that the feasibility of the  concept clearly was a success. However, the Center noted that there  were problems and limitations. While none of the problems was  considered a showstopper, the Center stated that the Sea Swap  demonstration afforded the opportunity to learn lessons in order to  enhance the use of the practice in the future. Many of these, such as the  need for improved accountability, oversight, and understanding of  maintenance strategies, are discussed in this report.
section_title: Key Commands Responsible for Implementing Rotational Crewing on Surface Ships
paragraphs: The Chief of Naval Operations has charged the Commander, Naval Surface  Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, with being the primary proponent for  demonstrating the feasibility of rotating crews on surface ships as well as  assessing the cost of the various options and providing oversight and  accountability. To date the Command’s emphasis has been on using the  Sea Swap demonstration as a “proof-of-concept” for rotational crewing. It  provided the guidance implementing the concept, approved the  assessment plan, and used Center support to collect and analyze some  data. However, other commands are involved in implementing other  rotational crewing options on surface ships; they include the Mine Warfare  Command and the Amphibious Group Two Command. See appendix II for  a more complete list of organizations involved.
section_title: The Navy Has Not Systematically Evaluated the Feasibility and Cost-Effectiveness of Rotational Crewing for Surface Ships
paragraphs: Although the Navy’s senior leadership has initiated a change in how the  Navy can operate in the future by demonstrating that rotational crewing is  a feasible alternative to traditional 6-month ship deployments, the Navy  has not systematically evaluated the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of all  rotational crewing options for its current and future classes of surface  ships. The Navy has documented that rotational crewing helps to increase  the forward presence of its ships beyond the traditional 6-month  deployment periods, and officials have indicated that they want to make  greater use of rotational crew options. While the Navy has conducted  some limited assessments of the Sea Swap destroyer demonstration  project, it has not developed a comprehensive common analytical  framework to assess the potential impact of all rotational crewing options  on the material condition of all of the ships, operational requirements, and  the quality of life for crews.
In addition, the Navy has not collected complete and consistent  information that is critical for comparing different crewing alternatives for  such factors as evaluating which alternative most cost-effectively meets  specific requirements and warfighting effectiveness. In the absence of a  common analytical framework, Navy officials assigned to ships that have  used or experimented with crew rotations have been left to develop their  own goals, objectives, and metrics and the results have to date been  uneven. As a result, the Navy does not have complete and accurate data,  including cost data that reflect total ownership and operating and support  costs, readiness, and crew quality of life, making success or failure of the  individual options involving different types of ships difficult to determine.  In the absence of a systematic evaluation, the Navy also does not know the  extent to which rotational crewing options can provide maximum return  on investment and economically offset future ship total ownership costs.
subsections: section_title: Navy Has Some Evidence to Show That Rotational Crewing Increases Forward Presence and Is Considering Greater Use
paragraphs: The Navy has developed some data to demonstrate that rotational crewing  helps to increase the forward presence of its ships beyond the traditional  6-month deployment periods. Table 1 shows the percentage of time a ship  would be notionally forward deployed during the employment cycle for  each type of crew deployment option and the number of ships that would  be required to keep one vessel continuously operating in the Persian Gulf.
Given such promise for improving deployment efficiencies, Surface Force  Pacific Command officials have considered using rotational crewing  options on other ships. For example, in July 2004, the Commander, Naval  Surface Force, indicated plans to use the Sea Swap option on an  Arleigh Burke-class destroyer based in the Atlantic Fleet and an  expeditionary strike group based in the Pacific Fleet, during the spring and  summer of 2005, respectively. In addition, Mine Warfare Command  officials informed us in July 2004 that it intends to rotate crews on mine  warfare ships based in the Persian Gulf later in the year, but it had not yet  determined which option it will use.
The Navy is also considering rotational crewing for operating future ships  and, as a result, it could change the number of new ships that might be  purchased. For example, the Navy is designing and procuring the littoral  combat ship and the DD(X), which will cost billions of dollars. The Navy  has suggested that if crew rotations with an expeditionary strike group are  as successful as with the Sea Swap destroyers’ demonstration,  procurement plans for the number of the DD(X) destroyers can be  reduced and the savings applied to other high priority ships.
section_title: No Established Framework and Limited Information for Comparing Crew Rotation Options
paragraphs: While the Center and the Surface Force Pacific Command have conducted  some assessments of the Sea Swap demonstration project, the Navy did  not have an analytical framework or collect the information that would be  needed to assess and compare all crewing options. Lacking such a  framework, the Navy has not systematically assessed the effect that  rotational crewing has on such factors as the ships’ material condition and  readiness or crew quality of life and training. Additionally, the Navy has  not systematically evaluated the cost-effectiveness of the various crewing  options.
subsections: section_title: Analytic Framework Would Improve Ability to Evaluate Crewing Options
paragraphs: Best practices show that an analytic framework that includes measurable  goals and objectives, performance metrics, and evaluation plans would  allow decision makers and others to receive consistent information  needed to compare and assess different policy options, measure  implementation progress, and determine whether the desired results were  being achieved. Without such information for the various crewing options,  Navy managers do not have a clear picture of the status of the crew  rotation efforts, whether potential benefits from different crew rotations  are being achieved, which option might be best in certain situations, and  whether major issues need to be resolved.
The Navy has not established formal criteria for evaluating the  implementation of the various rotational crewing options because its focus  has been on demonstrating the feasibility of the concept rather than on  assessing and formalizing the options. For example, the Navy did not  establish evaluation criteria prior to implementing Sea Swap, and none  was identified in the Center’s Sea Swap assessment plan. As a result, the  Center lacked criteria for judging ship condition and crew quality of life.  According to the Center’s September 2004 report, the Navy had no intent  to control the operational activities in the sense of a scientific experiment,  where one notionally scores a probability of success or other such  measure of effectiveness. It said the intent was that general conclusions  about the feasibility and difficulties of pursuing the Sea Swap concept for  future force employment planning would be drawn from the experiment.  Moreover, the Navy did not have comparable assessments for the options  employed on other ships such as the patrol coastal ships and the HSV-2  Swift.
More common data and analyses are not available for comparison  because, in the absence of a common analytical framework, individual  commands using crew rotations have been able to decide on their own  what (1) goals, objectives, and metrics to establish; (2) data to collect; and  (3) evaluations to do, if any. Such goals, objectives, and metrics on ship  condition and quality of life, which could affect crew retention, were not  established prior to deployment, and complete information on these  factors was not systematically collected during and after deployments.  As a result, while the Navy has reported that the Sea Swap demonstration  project was a success for the destroyers involved, the Navy lacks clear  criteria to objectively evaluate how well the project did and the project’s  potential against other rotational crewing options in two key areas we  assessed—the condition of the ship and the crew’s quality of life.
section_title: Material Condition of Ships Not Systematically Assessed
paragraphs: The Sea Swap demonstration project collected data on ship condition that  could be valuable. However, complete data were not systematically  collected on the ships before deployment and there were no clear criteria  for comparing the ships’ condition upon return. For example, the Navy  conducted a total ship readiness assessment of the U.S.S. Higgins, one of  the two demonstration destroyers, in April 2004, shortly after the ship  returned from its 18-month deployment. This post-deployment assessment  of the combat, hull, mechanical, and electrical systems was used to  compare the U.S.S. Higgins’s material condition to the U.S.S. Decatur’s.  The U.S.S. Decatur, a guided missile destroyer, had recently completed a  standard 6-month deployment. According to Surface Force officials, there  was no significant difference between the two ships’ material condition  upon return. However, there is some disagreement about the criteria and  interpretation of the data used in reaching this conclusion. This is  discussed in more detail on pages 37-39. In its report, the Center cautioned  that further analyses of ship material condition are needed. Comparable  assessments of ship condition are not being performed on the  U.S.S. Fletcher, the other Sea Swap destroyer on extended deployment.
The Navy is missing an opportunity to collect data and more objectively  assess the impact of extended deployments on ship condition. A more  stringent independent inspection for the U.S.S. Higgins is scheduled in  January 2005, about 8 months after its return from deployment and likely  after having received significant shipyard maintenance and modernization.  Furthermore, Surface Force officials also told us that a comparable pre- inactivation inspection, which is normally performed, would not be done  on the U.S.S. Fletcher because it is being decommissioned and they do not  want to spend the money.
section_title: Quality-of-Life Issues Not Fully Assessed
paragraphs: An objective of Sea Swap was to maintain the crews’ quality of life. The  Center’s study plan stated the Center would examine how the project  improved or degraded the quality of life and quality of work for Navy  personnel through surveys and interviews with crewmembers. However,  the Navy did not establish goals for determining the quality-of-life success  of the Sea Swap program. As a result, even though the Center had  collected data on morale, it could not conclude whether Sea Swap had  succeeded or failed in this regard. Also, the Navy has no plans to monitor  crews’ quality of life for the patrol coastal ships and the HSV-2 Swift. The  need for such an analysis is borne out by the impact of crew morale on  reenlistment rates.
Quality of Life Is an Important Factor in Sailors’ Career Choice  Sailors’ views of their quality of life is an important factor in determining  whether they will choose to continue their military career. The Chief of  Naval Operations has recognized the importance of people in making the  Navy successful in performing its mission and has consistently made  manpower and quality of service top priorities. According to the Chief,  “Quality of work includes everything that makes your workplace a great  place to be—from getting the spare parts you need in a timely manner to  working spaces that are up to current standards.”
Sea Swap’s Implementation May Have Been Key to Quality-of-Life  Concerns  Information collected by the Center, and by us during our review,  indicated that implementation of the Sea Swap demonstration project had  a negative effect on crewmember quality of life. While noting that  Sea Swap had been successful technically, the Center’s pre- and post- surveys of the crew showed that Sea Swap adversely affected morale  because of the increased workload, fewer opportunities for liberty port  calls, and crewmembers’ general impression that the Sea Swap  deployment was worse than their previous deployment. For example, the  Center asked crews about their expectations for Sea Swap compared to  previous deployments. The survey results showed that 65 percent of the  arriving crews expected that Sea Swap would be a worse experience than  their last deployment and of departing crews; 84 percent said participating  in Sea Swap was worse.
Our focus groups with crews on the U.S.S. Higgins and the patrol coastal  ships also revealed a negative quality of life. The Center and we both  identified several factors that contributed to sailors’ feelings, including  workload, training and professional development opportunities, quantity  and quality of port visits, and several sociological issues (e.g., culture, ship  “ownership,” sense of pride and recognition, predictability, or Navy  tradition). The Center also noted that Navy leadership would need to  understand which features of Sea Swap cause negative perceptions.
We addressed quality-of-life issues in each of our 43 focus group meetings.  All 26 of our focus group meetings with Sea Swap destroyer crews that  served on the U.S.S. Higgins and with crews on patrol coastal ships  attested to a highly negative quality of life, a decreased morale, and a  strong desire to not participate on any more crew rotations implemented  like their most recent experience. Many crewmembers indicated that  rotational crewing might have had a more positive effect if the following  conditions were met:    crew swapping had been better managed to ensure work accountability to  reduce the workload,  there had been time for individual training and professional development,    promises had been kept on designated port calls,    port calls had been phased throughout the deployment instead of at the  end when sailors just wanted to return home,  return flight schedules had been better coordinated, and    proper recognition had been given to each crew.
A small number of crewmembers indicated that their Sea Swap experience  was positive in that they liked knowing they would be on a finite  deployment period of 6 months.
In contrast, the 17 focus groups we conducted with Blue-Gold  crewmembers from the HSV-2 Swift and the strategic submarine force  found that these crewmembers had a generally positive crew rotation  experience. They attributed their positive experiences to a level workload,  management accountability, predictable schedules, individual training and  professional development opportunities, and sufficient amounts of  personal time during the interdeployment cycle, despite the ships’ high  operational tempo.
Negative Morale Impacted Reenlistment Rates  Lower reenlistment rates for sailors with less than 6 years of service that  served on Sea Swap guided missile destroyers and patrol coastal ships  reinforced the Center’s survey results and our focus group findings. Both  Pacific Fleet and Surface Force Command officials identified reenlistment  data as a key indicator of whether crews are satisfied with rotations. The  Center’s survey and our analysis showed that negative morale associated  with participating in Sea Swap had an adverse impact on reenlistment  rates. The Center’s conclusion was based on a series of crew surveys.  According to the Center,    55 percent of the crew said after the deployment that they thought that  Sea Swap would make them less likely to stay in the Navy, versus  39 percent before the deployment, and    73 percent stated that if all deployments were like Sea Swap, they would  be less likely to stay in the Navy.
Our analysis of overall reenlistment data for sailors with less than 6 years  of active service indicated that the crews on all three Arleigh Burke-class  destroyers involved in the Sea Swap demonstration experienced  50 percent reenlistment rates. These rates were below the Navy-wide  reenlistment goal of 56 percent for this group and the actual 64 percent  reenlistment rate for non-Sea Swap Arleigh Burke-class destroyers based  in the Pacific Fleet. Because the first-term reenlistment rates for the three  Sea Swap destroyer crews were as low as 23 to 37 percent during their  Sea Swap cycle, these ships were among the few that did not meet the  Navy-wide reenlistment goal. If the Navy expands rotational crewing with  out understanding its full impact on crews, the results could affect  retention and crew support.
section_title: Cost-Effectiveness of Crew Rotation Options Not Systematically Evaluated
paragraphs: The Offices of the Chief of Naval Operations and Navy commands using  crew rotations have not systematically collected cost data for assessing  the return on investment or cost-effectiveness of all surface ship rotational  crewing options for current and future ships. The Navy testified to the  Senate Committee on Armed Services in March 2002 that it would  determine the true cost and potential savings of one rotational crewing  option, Sea Swap, to provide a firm analytical basis in order to decide  whether to expand use of that option or look for other alternatives.  Recently, the Commander, Naval Surface Force, initiated a limited effort  to collect and model costs. However, to date, data collection and analyses  comparing the cost of all the crew rotation options have not been  completed. Cost-effectiveness is a method used by organizations seeking  to gain the best value for their money and to achieve operational  requirements while balancing costs, schedules, performance, and risks.  The best value is often not readily apparent and requires an analysis to  maximize value. A cost-effectiveness analysis is used where benefits  cannot be expressed in monetary terms but, rather, in “units of benefit,”  for example, days of forward presence. Such an analysis would be of  particular importance when making return on investment decisions about  how many ships to buy and how to operate them.
Moreover, officials in DOD’s Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation  told us that they have not conducted a basic cost-effectiveness analysis of  rotational crewing alternatives. Nonetheless, they believe that rotational  crewing is a good concept, that the Navy needs to perform these analyses,  and that they were not aware of any such analyses having been conducted  in the Navy. The Naval Cost Analysis Division cited DOD cost analysis  guidance and procedures that would be applicable to a cost-effectiveness  study of rotational crewing alternatives. According to Division officials,  this guidance is to be used as the basis for preparing program life-cycle  cost estimates, and provides information on the scope of the cost analysis,  the procedures, and the presentation of the estimates. Division officials  also told us they have not participated in any rotational crewing  cost-effectiveness studies nor are they aware of any. Officials in both DOD  and Navy offices indicated that the cost analyses for crew rotation  alternatives should include the development of a cost structure for  identifying all the relevant cost elements in the program, including depot  level maintenance, fuel, training, infrastructure costs, and other costs  unique to the program.
While Surface Force Pacific officials had developed limited information on  costs and savings unique to the Sea Swap destroyers, it was not complete,  and they have not developed comparable data for the patrol coastal ships  and the HSV-2 Swift. Examples of information collected included the  estimated fuel savings from ship transits that were not needed;  transportation, room and board for flying the crews to turnover cities; and  special training. These officials told us that they plan to collect additional  data to help evaluate Sea Swap costs, but that they are still determining  what cost data should be collected and how to establish a baseline for  control group comparison purposes. Furthermore, they told us that  collection of the data will be challenging because there is no central  database or automated system for coding rotational crewing-related  expenses that could be used for documenting the unique costs associated  with rotational crewing. The officials were also concerned that Navy  management and accounting data systems are not integrated, making it  difficult to collect complete and actual cost information that could be  helpful in identifying the costs of the Sea Swap initiative.
Surface Force Pacific officials have also determined that they have  responsibility for assessing the costs of crew rotation in the patrol coastal  ships as well, but they had not been doing so. Amphibious Group Two  officials told us in October 2003 that they have not systematically  evaluated costs and are not aware of any cost-effectiveness analyses of  rotational crewing being conducted. Surface Force officials said that more  complete costs for patrol coastal ships have to be collected and analyzed  to allow for cost-effective comparisons.
Notwithstanding the limitations in the available cost data, Naval Surface  Force Pacific officials told us they recently developed and are refining a  model that presents information that is more comprehensive. For  example, in a July 14, 2004, briefing, the Force’s commanding officer  presented costs of the Sea Swap demonstration, including a cost  comparison for both the U.S.S. Fletcher and the U.S.S. Higgins to other  ships in their respective classes, including the average costs per deployed  day. Surface Force Pacific officials said that this model is also used to  present similar data for the future littoral combat ship. However, we were  informed that much of the data used in the model is based on estimates  rather than actual costs and that some costs integral to evaluating  rotational crewing options, such as maintenance and training  infrastructure, were not included. Furthermore, the model has not been  tested or validated by the Navy.
section_title: Navy Has Not Provided Effective Guidance or Capitalized on Lessons Learned from Rotational Crewing Experiences
paragraphs: The Navy has done some planning in support of rotational crewing on  surface ships, such as for the Sea Swap demonstration project, but  because the concept is evolving as an alternative, the service has not  provided effective guidance during implementation on all ships to ensure  proper oversight and accountability. Furthermore, the Navy has not  systematically leveraged lessons learned to effectively support rotational  crewing. Effective guidance and sharing of lessons learned are key  management tools to overcome challenges associated with  institutionalizing change and facilitating efficient operations. The Navy has  well-established crew rotation policies and procedures for ballistic missile  submarines for use as best practices that include appropriately  documenting the ship’s condition and using advanced teams to help  prepare for crew turnover and help ensure accountability. However, the  Navy has not provided comparable guidance with policies and procedures  to ensure proper crew turnover and accountability to all surface ships  using rotational crewing. Consequently, the management of surface ship  crew rotations has been informally delegated to each ship’s incoming and  outgoing commanding officers. This has resulted in inconsistent  management of and accountability for operational factors, such as the  ship’s condition and ship inventories, when one crew replaces another. In  addition, the surface ship community has not systematically collected,  recorded, or disseminated lessons learned from all rotational crewing  experiences. Although the Navy has a formal system to record lessons  learned from fleet operations, experiences from crew rotations are not  being recorded in the system so that they could be routinely shared among  the surface ships and commands using rotational crewing. As a result, the  Navy unnecessarily risks repeating past mistakes that could decrease  warfighting effectiveness and crew morale.
subsections: section_title: Navy Conducted Some Planning in Support of Rotational Crewing
paragraphs: Because rotating crews aboard surface ships on extended deployments  differs from the traditional 6-month ship deployment, it is important that  planning be effective to increase institutional knowledge and gain  acceptance for implementing the change. The Navy has performed  extensive planning in support of rotational crewing on ballistic missile  submarines. However, crew rotation planning for the surface ship  community has been limited and less formal.
subsections: section_title: Submarine Community Has Established Planning Elements
paragraphs: The submarine community has a well-established concept for conducting  Blue-Gold crew rotations, based on 40 years of experience on fleet  ballistic missile submarines. As a result, we analyzed the community’s  concepts, procedures, and processes to identify “best practices.” We found  that three key elements of this concept are  formalized turnover policies and procedures;    a training plan that maintains proficiency of crews that are in port; and    a maintenance plan that includes crew and incremental maintenance.
Formalized Crew Rotation Turnover Policies and Procedures Help  Ensure Accountability  The Navy’s Submarine Forces Command developed formal policies and  procedures for crew turnover in order to develop a comprehensive status  of a ship’s material condition and accountability of controlled material and  documents, scheduled maintenance, and supply. The turnover process  takes place over 2 to 3 days, during which the on-coming crewmembers  from each department and division meet with their off-going counterparts  to review detailed turnover checklists that cover issues such as personnel,  training, administration, maintenance logs, classified material, ship  operational funds, parts, and food supplies. For example, both crews  review the status of preventative and corrective maintenance repairs that  are recorded in equipment status logs, which help document the material  condition of the ship. This information is passed from one crew to another  during turnover to maintain continuity of maintenance. Both crews also  review an inventory of provisions, medicines, hazardous material, and  information technology equipment. Crewmembers from both crews are  required to sign the checklists, and the two ship commanders are  ultimately responsible for ensuring accountability of the material  condition of the ship. By taking these steps, the on-coming ship command  has the opportunity to note unsatisfactory conditions—including  significant personnel, training, operational readiness, habitability, and  material deficiency issues—on an exchange-of-command report.  Turnovers can be delayed if both crews do not agree on the ship’s material  status. Members from one crew we met mentioned that they take pride in  conducting the turnover because they want to set the standard for their  partner crew.
Training Programs Maintain Proficiency of the Crew While Ashore  Maintaining the operational proficiency of the crew that is in port without  a submarine is the main challenge to the strategic submarine’s Blue-Gold  system. In response, the strategic submarine force has developed a  training program to maintain crew proficiency in core competencies while  ashore. This program is designed to update crews on recent procedural  changes, allow crews to perform maintenance operations, and refresh  personnel who have been away from their duties for several months.  Crews receive classroom instruction and maintain their skills in simulators  at the Trident Training Facility. Crews are monitored and evaluated  through graded individual and group exercises. Officers and crewmembers  stated that they generally received adequate and sufficient training at the  training facility to perform their mission. Nevertheless, they stated that  simulated training is not the same as training on a ship and that crew  readiness is lower during the first week of deployment as they try to  refamiliarize themselves with the ship and their mission.
Crew and Incremental Maintenance Plan Designed for  Rotational Crewing  The ballistic missile submarine maintenance concept was specifically  designed to accomplish incremental maintenance over a 42-year life cycle.  The concept consists of crews working together to conduct maintenance  repairs and incremental maintenance that is planned or unplanned  corrective maintenance during an in-port maintenance period.
The submarine community has formal guidance for the in-port  maintenance period during which both crews jointly conduct maintenance  repairs. One main purpose is to enhance the efficiency and productivity  of the maintenance period. During this time, both crews operate under one  chain of command; the off-going crew reports directly to the on-coming  ship commander. Once the submarine is at sea, the off-crew works with  the maintenance facility and the on-crew to develop a work package of  needed preventive and corrective maintenance repairs. As a result, during  the next in-port maintenance period the crew that has just taken command  knows what to expect. Officers and crewmembers in our focus groups  stated that this approach was key to completing required maintenance  repairs in a short period. It also helps ensure that items that may not have  been captured during turnover are identified according to officers on one  submarine. In addition, crews stated that this concept decreases the  incentives for pushing off work to the other crew because both crews  conduct the needed maintenance repairs.
The incremental maintenance plan involves routine maintenance based on  a set schedule common to all submarines and corrective repairs, which  include those items that break or are in a degraded condition as a result of  operations. The Trident Planned Equipment Replacement Program,  another aspect of incremental maintenance, provides for repairs on hull,  mechanical, electrical, or combat control system equipment that require  maintenance beyond the ability of the ship’s crew. The incremental  overhaul relies on an extensive shore-based maintenance infrastructure,  including dedicated full-time maintenance personnel, maintenance  facilities that provide a full range of repair and maintenance services, and  dry docks that provide the support necessary to conduct required  equipment repairs and replacements.
section_title: Limited Planning for Surface Ship Crew Rotations
paragraphs: Despite the challenges of implementing this change in crewing practice,  the surface ship community’s planning in support of crew rotations has  been less formal and limited to several areas, including crew training on  different systems used on participating ships, use of advanced crew  turnover teams, and location and timing of port calls. Crews in our focus  groups also identified some limitations to these planning efforts.
Planned Training for Different Equipment and Systems between  Ships Had Limitations  A Naval Warfare College study of several crew rotation options identified  the crew’s unfamiliarity with equipment and systems between different  ships as a potential challenge for conducting the program. As part of the  Sea Swap demonstration project, the Commander, Naval Surface Force,  sought to address differences in ship design, construction, and  modernization between forward-deployed and nondeployed ships by  providing crews with predeployment training specific to the forward- deployed ship they would join. The Command planned for the training to  account for many of the differences between the destroyers, with  emphasis on training systems and equipment on the forward-deployed  ship, and set-up training classes in the United States and Sea Swap cities.  For example, one on-coming crew received training to ensure its  proficiency in areas such as critical weapons systems and engineering  prior to the ship’s turnover. Amphibious Group Two also provided training  to patrol coastal ship crews to help them bridge the engineering  differences they would face on the deployed ship.
However, in our focus group discussions, ship crews participating in  Sea Swap and on the patrol coastal ships cited concerns about the  adequacy of this training. The crewmembers indicated that proficiency  improved with practice drills, but sufficient proficiency was not achieved  prior to deploying, even though they had received their certifications. The  delay in achieving proficiency was accentuated for the crew that swapped  in the Persian Gulf because the crewmembers did not have the  opportunity during a transit to become familiar with their new ship. For  example, crewmembers for one ship stated that they only received partial  training for operating a new radio that is necessary for conducting strike  operations. This partial training degraded the crew’s ability to shoot  Tomahawk land attack missiles. Crewmembers also stated that they did  not receive training to operate damage control radios, which meant the  crew would have been unable to use the radios in an emergency.
Patrol coastal ship crewmembers also indicated that they faced challenges  in training to operate the deployed ship’s different equipment. For  example, crewmembers stated they did not receive weapons training for  Stinger missiles prior to overseas deployment because these weapons  systems are not typically used while on deployment in the United States.  Patrol coastal ship focus group comments revealed that the crews  compensated for training deficiencies with self-initiated training during  deployment. These crews also received some training from the Coast  Guard while in theater. They felt the deficiencies in training on different  systems compromised their ability to perform their respective mission.
Value of Some Advanced Turnover Teams Was Limited  The Surface Force Pacific Command established advance turnover teams  to assist ships participating in the Sea Swap destroyer demonstration  project, but their assistance was sometimes constrained. These teams  were comprised of approximately 15 to 20 members of the on-coming  crew who were sent to the forward-deployed ship 2 weeks in advance of  the turnover to conduct inventories and observe ship operations. The use  of an advanced turnover team was an effort to expedite the turnover  process from one crew to another. A Command official cited the work  performed by these teams as instrumental in reducing the amount of time  required for the turnover as well as for increasing their familiarity with the  new ship. However, crewmembers in our focus groups stated that advance  teams were not as effective as they could have been in some turnovers  because they were denied access to areas and equipment in the ship at the  time of turnovers. For example, a regional support office assumed control  of a Sea Swap destroyer in the United States, locked up the workspaces,  and did not grant the advance team access. In another instance, the  advance team arriving on the ship overseas was not given access until the  new crew assumed responsibility for the ship, which limited the team’s  time and ability to expedite an effective turnover.
section_title: Navy Crew Rotation Efforts Have Lacked Standard Guidance to Ensure Oversight and Accountability
paragraphs: The Navy’s implementation of surface ship crew rotation efforts lacked  effective guidance to ensure oversight and accountability. Because the  practice differs from the traditional crewing approach, such guidance is a  key to ensuring successful implementation. In the absence of such  guidance, including standard policies and procedures similar to those used  in the ballistic missile submarine community, officers and crews on  Sea Swap destroyers, patrol coastal ships, and the HSV-2 Swift developed  their own turnover procedures. This caused inconsistency between crews  conducting the turnovers, which in turn, led to problems in documenting  ship condition and accounting for ship inventories. As a result, surface  ship crews cited the need to develop and implement standard turnover  procedures, including checklists.
Crewmembers said there was no document to sign during the turnover to  hold crews accountable for recording necessary maintenance repairs. For  example, crews reported that Navy systems for tracking maintenance  requirements and accomplishments were not systematically used to record  maintenance repairs. Officers and enlisted crews on Sea Swap destroyers  and patrol coastal ships indicated that, as a result, the ship maintenance  logs did not accurately reflect the material status of the ships. One  Sea Swap crew reported that the prior crew did not document that the  forward-fueling station had a hole, which took the entire deployment to  fix. In another instance, one crew stated that although three portable fire  pumps were required to be on board the vessel, the crew only found two  pumps, of which only one worked. Additionally, a patrol coastal ship crew  indicated that the previous crew reported only a few needed maintenance  repairs in the maintenance log. However, after turnover, the on-coming  crew said that it noted about 50 repair items, including all 6 main engines  that could not operate simultaneously. In another case, the electronic  preventive maintenance log was not working during turnover, which the  on-coming crew reportedly spent 3 weeks in repairs to make it function.
A ship commander mentioned that there is a challenge associated with  properly tracking maintenance logs, which are not valued by all crews.  Those logs can be valuable tools when used, but he stated that the  maintenance logs did not reflect the material status of the ship. Some  patrol coastal ship officers stated that every crew emphasizes different  maintenance priorities, which can contribute to perceptions of inadequate  material condition of the ship during and after turnover. Notwithstanding  different perceptions of the material condition of the ship, Sea Swap and  patrol coastal ship crewmembers raised concerns about the lack of  accountability, in particular oversight of documenting the material  condition of the ship. Crewmembers from the Sea Swap destroyers and  patrol coastal ships cited the need to establish turnover standards and  checklists and to conduct an independent inspection to monitor the  turnover and review the material condition of the ship.
Sea Swap and patrol coastal ship crews also mentioned that accountability  for ship inventories was inadequate. Naval supply guidance cites the need  to conduct physical inventories of equipment and materials to the extent  necessary to ensure effective control of those materials normally required  for performing the mission or which require special management  attention. Crewmembers told us that guidance on conducting inventories  was not always followed in preparation for and during turnovers. Some  crews mentioned that the time to review supply inventories, a  time-consuming activity during turnover, was a problem. There were  several instances on Sea Swap destroyers of missing equipment— maintenance assistance modules estimated at $90,000—and tools. One  Sea Swap destroyer crew also reported that the crew discovered during an  inventory a pair of missing night vision goggles. In another case, the on- coming crew lacked basic supplies, such as cleaning materials, light bulbs,  and toilet paper. Crewmembers also reported items missing on their  assigned ships upon return that were not identified during turnover. In  another example, crewmembers of a patrol coastal ship crew stated that,  upon return to the United States, they found that 10,000 rounds of  ammunition were missing on their assigned ship. Sea Swap destroyer and  patrol coastal ship crews cited the need for an independent authority to  hold crews accountable for ship inventories.
section_title: Surface Ship Community Did Not Capitalize on Past and Current Lessons Learned
paragraphs: The surface ship community also has not capitalized on existing and  evolving lessons learned to more effectively plan and conduct crew  rotations. Capturing and sharing such lessons serve to further  institutionalize change by improving its implementation. While the Navy  has a formal system to record lessons learned, experiences from current  rotational crewing efforts are not being systematically collected and  recorded in that system. As a result, the Navy is missing an opportunity to  record lessons learned that could be leveraged by crews involved in  current and future crew rotation experiences. Further, surface ships and  commands have not capitalized on the lessons learned in the system to  plan and conduct crew rotations. Consequently, crews experienced similar  difficulties to those that the previously recorded lessons learned sought  to correct.
subsections: section_title: Navy Lessons Learned System Created as a Central Repository to Preclude the Loss of Knowledge
paragraphs: The Navy created a lessons learned database in 1991 to provide a system  for units to benefit from collective Navy experiences, identify deficiencies,  and take corrective measures in all aspects of fleet operations. A lesson  learned is defined as information that increases the efficiency of Navy  processes and improves the execution of future operations. According to  the Navy, it should provide value to existing Navy policy, doctrine, tactics,  techniques, procedures, organization, training, systems, or equipment.
The Navy Warfare Development Command is responsible for  administering the system, and its officials indicated that information for  current rotational crewing efforts should be submitted to the system, as it  is the best way for lessons to be shared across the Navy community.  Anyone in the Navy can submit a lessons learned report through the  immediate chain of command. Fleet commands process and validate the  proposed report, which is then forwarded to be officially entered into the  system. Navy personnel ashore and at sea can access lessons learned  contained in the system through a classified Internet site. Use of this  central repository would preclude the loss of lessons, such as those lost by  the Mine Warfare Command in the late 1990s due to a computer failure.
section_title: Surface Ship Commands Have Not Made Systematic Efforts to Collect and Record Lessons Learned for the Navy’s Central System
paragraphs: The Naval Surface Force Command recognized the need for a  comprehensive list of lessons learned in order to examine the Sea Swap  initiative, but the Command has not made a systematic effort to collect or  record lessons learned, nor did it task Sea Swap crews to identify and  submit them. Aside from 78 lessons learned pertaining to crew rotations  that took place in 1999 on Forward Deployed Naval Forces in the Seventh  Fleet area of operations, no lessons learned directly related to crew  rotations had been posted regarding the Sea Swap destroyers, patrol  coastal ships, and HSV Swift experiences as of July 30, 2004. Absent  guidance, Sea Swap crews’ efforts to record lessons learned have been  inconsistent. Some crews developed lists of lessons learned that were  distributed to other rotational crews and the Command, including some  that related to manning, personnel, supply, predeployment maintenance,  training, turnover preparations and execution, turnover time, and advance  parties. In one case, a Sea Swap ship undertook a concerted effort to  document lessons learned prior to deployment, but a majority of those  documents were later discarded because the crew wanted to create  additional workspace. By not systematically recording and providing  valuable experiences from crew rotations to the Navy Lessons Learned  System, the Navy is missing an opportunity to more effectively plan and  conduct current and future crew rotations.
In response to a Senate Armed Services Committee request on the status  of one of the Sea Swap ships, the Command identified a preliminary set  of lessons learned as shown in table 2.
A final report will be provided to the Committee once the initiative is  completed. None of these lessons learned from the Sea Swap initiative  have been reported to the Navy Lessons Learned System.
Efforts to gather lessons learned in the patrol coastal community have  been inconsistent. Amphibious Group Two similarly did not provide  direction to collect and record lessons learned and stated that crews  involved in rotations passed on lessons learned to one another. A patrol  coastal ship commander stated that crew efforts to gather lessons learned  were informal. We identified one lessons learned report sent by a ship  commander to the ship’s command, Amphibious Group Two,  that contained lessons related to maintenance funding, ownership, and  maintaining good ship inventories. However, none of these lessons  learned had been recorded in the Navy Lessons Learned System as of  July 30, 2004.
The Mine Warfare Command directed the HSV-2 Swift commanding  officers to develop lessons learned reports on five issues. Only two of  those lessons learned reports had been posted to the Navy Lessons  Learned System as of July 30, 2004, and neither addressed ship crewing  issues.
section_title: Many Past Lessons Learned Available in Formal System Are Not Being Systematically Leveraged
paragraphs: The surface ship community has not capitalized on the Navy lessons  learned database to plan and conduct crew rotations. A Naval Surface  Force Pacific Command official told us that the Command did not  systematically solicit available lessons learned from the Navy Lessons  Learned System to help plan for crew rotations. We found that participants  in our focus groups reported experiencing similar problems that several of  the formal lessons learned reported by the Forward Deployed Naval  Forces in 1999 had addressed. For example, two important lessons not  leveraged were  reviewing the automated process for the transfer of crew identification  codes when assigned to a new ship and    establishing and abiding by a written agreement between both ship  commanders that clearly defines transfer and accountability procedures  for equipment turnover.
When crews for Forward Deployed Naval Forces were rotated in 1999,  the Navy recognized that the ships were not timely in properly updating  crewmembers’ records to show the ship to which crewmembers were  assigned. This resulted in incorrect enlisted master files and the inability  to process pay transactions. The lesson learned report stated that the  Navy should instantly transfer personnel from one code to another  automatically in a timely manner, which is crucial to avoid incorrect  master files and the potential loss of certain pay and entitlements.  Numerous Sea Swap destroyer, patrol coastal ship, and HSV-2 Swift  officers and crews we met experienced similar difficulties. They reported  that because their respective code was not changed to reflect they had  changed ships, some crewmembers experienced problems receiving pay  and others were ordered to the wrong ship. Officers and crew from a  Sea Swap ship stated that creating codes for each crew would help  alleviate similar problems. Assigning crews codes is a standard practice in  the ballistic missile submarine community. This practice was also used by  the mine warfare community during their crew rotations in the mid-1990s.  The systematic use of an effective lessons learned system could have  alerted the Navy to the need for a mechanism to ensure the effective  transfer of crews and ships from one code to another in a timely and an  accurate manner.
Establishing and abiding by written agreements between both ship  commanders involved in a crew rotation enable both crews early in the  planning phase to determine what equipment stays with the ship or the  crew and improves accountability for tool equipment transfer. The Navy’s  lessons learned database identified the need for such agreements.  However, despite both ship commanders agreeing during the planning  phases of one of the turnovers that each ship’s tools, parts, and material  would remain with the respective ship and that both crews would review  an inventory checklist during turnover, both crews did not follow the  agreement. One crew removed many of the tools and other equipment  before leaving the ship. As a result, the on-coming crew did not have the  needed tools and other equipment to perform maintenance and repairs  and had to spend $150,000 to buy the needed tools. Officers and crews  from two patrol coastal ships also indicated that absent an agreed-upon  written inventory identifying which items stay with the ship and what  items stay with the crew, one of the crews took needed ship items back to  the United States, in part, to ensure the crew had necessary items on the  new ship. Officers from one patrol coastal ship stated that there is a need  for a standard set of inventory items that should stay on a ship. Sea Swap  and patrol coastal ship officers and crewmembers stated that an  independent authority is needed to monitor the turnover process,  including an inventory of tools, to hold both crews accountable.
section_title: Maintenance Strategies for Alternative Crewing and Potential Impacts Have Not Been Fully Assessed
paragraphs: The impact of ship maintenance on the implementation of rotational  crewing has not been fully assessed. This is because the Navy has been  focused on demonstrating the feasibility of the practice and allowed ships  to use different approaches to conducting maintenance without capturing  all needed information and examining all related issues that could impact  success. A full assessment of maintenance issues on all ships employing  this practice would be important in identifying and addressing possible  impediments to effectively implementing rotational crewing. Navy  destroyers and patrol coastal ships using rotational crews on extended  deployments have faced maintenance challenges to ensure the mission  capability of ships while overseas. To help minimize the adverse effects on  the material condition of forward-deployed Sea Swap destroyers, the Navy  expanded the scope of predeployment maintenance and sent maintenance  support representatives in theater to provide additional technical support  to crews. Despite concluding that the condition of the returning ship,  U.S.S. Higgins, was comparable to that of another ship that had recently  returned from a deployment, the results of such efforts on maintaining  ship material condition are uncertain. The Center recommended that a  review of maintenance support might be necessary prior to expanding  Sea Swap to other ships. We found the need for such an analysis was  further supported by the experience of patrol coastal ships, which did not  receive such focused maintenance and identified several maintenance  problems that were not corrected while deployed that could have affected  their mission capability. Moreover, both the Center and our focus groups  with rotational crews found that increased maintenance tasks contributed  to diminished crew morale. Therefore, while the Navy used rotational  crews to keep ships on station for up to 24 months, in the absence of a  careful analysis of alternative maintenance strategies, the Navy runs the  risk that some maintenance approaches will degrade the long-term  condition of ships, diminish crew morale, and discourage crew support for  using the practice.
subsections: section_title: Maintaining Ships on Extended Deployment Is a Challenge
paragraphs: Navy vessels using rotational crews on extended deployments have faced  maintenance challenges to ensure the vessels’ mission capability while  overseas. Normally, most ship maintenance and repair is completed  between 6-month deployments. For instance, Arleigh Burke-class  destroyers normally receive continuous maintenance annually and  2-month Selected Restricted Availabilities every 22 months. However,  ships employing rotational crews on extended deployments do not return  to the United States for periods of 12 or more months, so crews must  maintain ship capability while deployed in compliance with law and Navy  guidance on overseas maintenance (see appendix III for details on Navy  guidance).
According to the Center, each Sea Swap destroyer received more  maintenance support and more intensive support than typically received  by ships on routine deployments. This support included numerous  predeployment inspections and maintenance on their power, electrical,  steering, combat, and other systems to eliminate many potential required  maintenance activities during deployment. For example, the  predeployment maintenance on one of the Sea Swap ships, the  U.S.S. Fletcher, began with the identification of all time-driven  maintenance requirements that were scheduled during the extended  deployment. Examples included calibration, assessments, and inspections  of equipment to renew time-driven certifications. (Such actions are  comparable to checking a car’s timing belt or inspecting brakes and tires  before taking a long trip.) Numerous other inspections were also  conducted prior to deployment on selected ship systems and equipment to  identify and repair problems and ensure the good working order of the  ship. The U.S.S. Fletcher and the U.S.S. Higgins each received inspections  for hull, mechanical, and electrical systems, as well as combat systems.  The U.S.S. Higgins also received inspections of its Aegis radar system.
Sea Swap destroyers also received overseas maintenance support beyond  that available to ships on a typical deployment. The Surface Force Pacific  Command sent U.S.-based ship engineering material assessment teams,  ranging from 3 to 11 members, to perform maintenance on the Sea Swap  destroyers while the ships transited from their operational area of  responsibility to overseas locations where crew turnovers occurred. The  teams also assisted the crews while the destroyers were in port at the  crew turnover city and were comprised of senior-level maintainers capable  of performing a variety of maintenance jobs at the ship’s organizational  and intermediate levels. According to Navy maintenance officials, the  team’s presence during transit from the theater of operations to the  Sea Swap city and in port facilitated the completion of preventative  maintenance, particularly repairs associated with ship habitability. Surface  Force Pacific Command also assigned a Sea Swap destroyer port engineer  to help ship officials develop maintenance plans during port visits, which  is not typical for ships on normal deployments.
U.S. Naval Forces Central Command officials also noted that Sea Swap  destroyers experienced material degradation over time. As a result, both  destroyers required maintenance that was not readily supportable during  operations. Navy officials said that Sea Swap destroyers were given  preference for port visits in support of crew turnovers and maintenance as  compared to other ships. They also said that maintaining ships deployed to  the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility for long periods would  continue to be a challenge.
During our review, we found that patrol coastal ship rotational crews also  faced challenges in maintaining ship material condition. Like the Sea Swap  destroyers, the patrol coastal ships received system inspections prior to  deployment. Patrol coastal port engineers and maintenance support teams  checked key systems—such as engines, weapons packages, and the  bridge—to hedge against wear and tear the ship would experience on an  extended deployment. However, unlike the Sea Swap destroyers,  U.S. Naval Forces Central Command officials indicated that patrol coastal  ships were not given preferential treatment to support maintenance. The  patrol coastal ship community deployed a maintenance support team with  the crews in an effort to address overseas maintenance needs, however,  these teams are not unique to rotational crewing and typically support any  patrol coastal ship deployment. The team consisted of five members  located in theater who performed limited maintenance, ordered and stored  parts, and provided administrative support. The scope of the maintenance  performed by the teams was limited to organizational, intermediate, and  select depot-level maintenance.
According to focus groups with patrol coastal ship crews, the maintenance  support teams were usually the only personnel in theater capable of  rectifying frequently occurring maintenance problems. If a maintenance  support team was not available, the crew had to contact a technical  support representative in the United States for assistance or try to conduct  the maintenance itself. Some patrol coastal ship crewmembers indicated  that the size of the maintenance support teams was insufficient to support  both patrol coastal ships on extended deployments and suggested  expanding the maintenance support teams to be comparable to the system  used by the Coast Guard. According to patrol coastal ship crews, the Coast  Guard had four ships similar to the patrol coastal ships in theater and  provided approximately 50 maintenance personnel to perform the same  function as the patrol coastal maintenance support team. The increased  size of the Coast Guard’s maintenance support allowed its crews to stand  down and live in barracks during maintenance periods. By contrast, a  patrol coastal officer noted that, during maintenance availabilities,  maintenance support teams only assisted the crew and did not take over  the work effort and the crews remained on board throughout the repair  process and performed maintenance.
section_title: Full Impact of Navy Maintenance Strategy for Destroyers and Other Ships Using Crew Rotations Is Not Clear
paragraphs: The results of the different maintenance strategies used to sustain the  two destroyers that were apart of the Sea Swap demonstration project and  other ships using rotational crewing are uncertain. While the Center  judged that the condition of the U.S.S. Higgins was comparable to another  ship that had recently returned from a routine 6-month deployment, others  in the Navy disagreed based on inspection results. We did not identify any  similar effort to determine the impact on the patrol coastal or other ships  that would provide the Navy with additional insights into the impact of the  extended deployment on their condition.
The Center’s judgment was based in part on a total ship readiness  assessment conducted by Pacific Fleet maintenance personnel, in which  Surface Force Pacific officials judged the U.S.S. Higgins’ ship material  condition after a 17-month deployment to be comparable to the  U.S.S. Decatur’s. However, officials from the Fleet Technical Support  Center Pacific that performed the assessment thought there were some  significant differences in the condition between the two ships. These  officials found that the U.S.S. Higgins had 697 noted deficiencies out of  3,370 items tested (21 percent), whereas the U.S.S. Decatur had 465 out of  3,231 items tested (14 percent). While the number of deficiencies alone  does not necessarily indicate the significant material differences between  the ships, some of the items deficient on the U.S.S. Higgins included data  links for controlling operations between a ship and an aircraft and another  was the nonoperational extra high frequency communication system on  the U.S.S. Higgins that was operational on the U.S.S. Decatur.
Fleet Technical Support Center Pacific officials also assessed the  operational functionality of each ship’s equipment and found that the  U.S.S. Higgins was not as capable. This assessment measured the  equipment operational capability of each ship in order to quantitatively  determine whether the ship’s systems were performing in accordance  with Navy requirements. The assessment results showed that the  U.S.S. Higgins received an overall score of .70, while the U.S.S. Decatur  received a score of .85. According to the Navy handbook, an equipment  operational capability score of 1.0 indicates the equipment is fully capable  of performing its function as designed, while a score of 0 indicates the  equipment is totally unable to perform its function as designed. The  handbook provides that any score between .70 and .80 indicates ship  equipment is unable to obtain optimum operational standards, while  scores above .80 indicate ship equipment passes all operational tests.
A further breakdown of the scores indicates the U.S.S. Higgins may have  had problems that were more serious. The .70 score for the U.S.S. Higgins  was arrived at by assessing two categories of equipment: the combat  system-related equipment and the hull, mechanical, and electrical  systems-related equipment. The combat system-related equipment score  for the U.S.S. Higgins was .77, while the U.S.S. Decatur received a score  of .83. Since the combat system portion of the score was higher than the  total for the U.S.S. Higgins, the hull, mechanical, and electrical equipment  score was at a minimum below .70. According to the handbook, scores  above .50 and below .70 indicate that equipment has significantly reduced  output or restricted operability. By contrast, we found that the hull  mechanical and electrical equipment score for the U.S.S. Decatur was at  least .85, given an overall score of .85 and a combat system score of .83,  which indicated that equipment was fully operable.
Even though it concluded that the U.S.S. Higgins’ condition was  comparable, the Center recognized the importance of maintenance to the  success of rotational crewing and proposed the Navy further assess  maintenance responsibilities, relationships, and costs. Specifically, the  Center suggested that if Sea Swap becomes a more standard practice,  “it will be necessary to conduct a holistic review of the overall  maintenance process, including technical services and training.” This  review would assess the responsibilities and interrelationships among the  many players, such as the ship’s force, ship repair units, port engineers,  and ship engineering maintenance teams. In addition, the Center added  that the Navy should conduct a careful assessment to determine which  maintenance support aspects are essential costs and which are  dispensable. As of July 2004, the Navy had not started such an assessment.
We found that the experience of other ships on extended deployments,  such as patrol coastal ships, bore out the need for such an analysis.  Patrol coastal ships did not receive focused maintenance comparable to  Sea Swap destroyers, and ship officials identified several maintenance  problems aboard one or more ships (see table 3) that were not corrected  while deployed that could have affected their mission capability.
Patrol coastal ships on extended deployments did not have extra  in-theater maintenance support comparable to Sea Swap destroyers. For  instance, patrol coastal ships did not have ship engineering maintenance  teams to aid the crew in achieving maintenance. As a result, according to  the maintenance support team coordinator for patrol coastal ships,  routine continuous maintenance often could not be accomplished and,  subsequently, the overall material condition of patrol coastal ships  deployed overseas slowly degraded. The official explained that repairs  authorized overseas are very narrow in scope and only cover maintenance  absolutely necessary for the ship to conduct its mission. As a result, the  official commented that organizational- and intermediate-level planned  maintenance and preservation work are left to the crew and deployed  maintenance support teams to take on over short periods in port, typically  5 days or less. In addition, according to a patrol coastal ship port engineer,  each forward-deployed patrol coastal ship had received about 4 weeks of  maintenance in port over the last 18 months and added that this level of  maintenance does not equal what a traditionally deployed patrol coastal  would receive. Port engineers and other maintenance staff noted  challenges in keeping the patrol coastal ships operationally ready. For  instance, in our focus group discussions with patrol coastal ship crews,  they explained that the ship’s rotating crane that launches and retrieves  the ship’s rigid inflatable boats broke down during a patrol and the ship  had to rely upon the Coast Guard to help with its repair. A Navy official  also explained that the extendedly deployed patrol coastal ships have a  very high operational tempo, which also impacts the ability of the ship’s  force to conduct organizational maintenance and increases the overall  degradation of the ship over time. The official stated that onboard  maintenance efforts have been able to keep the patrol coastal ships  running, but that the Navy will pay a heavy price once the ships return to  homeport for extensive overhauls, since repairs that are more serious will  be necessary.
section_title: The Challenge of Maintaining Ships on Extended Deployment Contributed to Crew Morale and Quality-of-Life Problems
paragraphs: The Center and we found that crews expressed concern about the extra  workload they endured to maintain high ship readiness. Specifically, the  Center concluded that while the Sea Swap demonstration showed a  benefit for the Navy—saving dollars and increasing forward presence—  many sailors spoke of the burdens and loss of traditions. According to the  Center, Sea Swap crews performed more work and experienced fewer  benefits and traditions than what may have originally drawn them to the  Navy. For instance, the Center’s report noted that some Sea Swap  crewmembers found that the maintenance workload was high throughout  the entire deployment. Other complaints were that whenever the Sea Swap  ships pulled into an Arabian Gulf port, other ships’ sailors left on liberty  while the Sea Swap crews remained on board doing maintenance. This  intense maintenance schedule was a morale problem and a frequent topic  that arose during the Center’s crew interviews.
Our focus groups with Sea Swap destroyer crews identified similar  concerns. For instance, extra maintenance work related to painting and  preserving the ship was left to the ship’s crew to accomplish. In addition,  Sea Swap officers in our focus groups indicated that unreported work and  high workloads disrupted sailor quality of life and that there was no  increase in time or resources to get maintenance done. They also told us  that more equipment inspections by in-theater support teams were needed  while in port. The officers explained that the ship’s crew had to inspect  and fix different equipment throughout the ship because in-theater support  teams were not available. According to the Sea Swap officers and crew,  this affected their quality of life since liberty time was reduced to  accommodate ship maintenance needs.
Our focus groups with patrol coastal ship rotational crews also indicated  that increased maintenance tasks and workloads adversely affected crew  morale and quality of life. Patrol coastal ship senior chiefs told us that  rotational crews had difficulty meeting ship preservation requirements,  loading supplies, and documenting ship maintenance logs for non-working  items during port visits of 5 days or less. In addition, crewmembers on  each rotational patrol coastal ship complained that they received no  liberty ports; that all port visits became working ports due to the ship’s  maintenance needs; and that, given the small size of the ships, they needed  time away from other crewmembers to decompress. Furthermore, a patrol  coastal ship commanding officer said that his deployed patrol coastal ship  required too many maintenance demands and noted that the ship was  maintenance-intensive from the day his crew took over.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: Rotating crews aboard surface ships on extended deployments appears to  be a feasible alternative to the traditional way the Navy operates that  could enhance its effectiveness. Successfully overcoming issues that could  impede using this alternative and to gain support for implementing this  change require knowledge of the various rotational options and their  impact on operational requirements, ship condition, and crew morale.  However, the Navy has not taken several key steps that could help it better  plan, manage, and monitor the implementation of this crewing approach  and therefore may not realize its full potential. For example, the Navy has  not established the analytical framework to evaluate all rotational crewing  options and related costs. In the absence of formal measurable goals,  objectives, and metrics for assessing feasibility, cost, and other factors,  including crew quality of life, the Navy does not have clear criteria for  deciding when to use rotational crewing and which option best fits the  situation. Furthermore, until the Navy more systematically collects data on  current and potential surface ship rotational crewing options, including  complete and accurate cost data for cost-effectiveness analyses, it will  lack valuable information for making informed decisions about the  potential for applying rotational crewing to current and future ships as  well as whether it can get maximum return on investment and  offset billions of dollars in future total ownership costs.
The Navy’s implementation of crew rotations also lacks effective guidance  to ensure oversight and accountability. For example, the Navy does not  provide guidance that specifies standard policies and procedures for  rotating crews to ensure consistent management of and accountability for  ship operations during crew rotations. Until it does, crews may continue to  have problems consistently documenting ship condition and accounting  for ship inventories during ship turnover, which could lead to additional  work burdens on the on-coming crew and potentially affect readiness.  Furthermore, without more formal guidance built on systematically  collected, recorded, and disseminated lessons learned from all rotational  experiences that specify standard policies and procedures, the Navy may  repeat mistakes.
Finally, the Navy does not know enough about the implications of  maintenance on ships using rotational crews as a means to extend their  deployments. The Center for Naval Analyses noted in its report on the  Sea Swap demonstration that if that option is to become a more standard  practice, the Navy needs to further review the overall maintenance  process. However, until the Navy fully assesses the additional  maintenance demands and related crew quality-of-life issues experienced  by all ships implementing this crewing approach, and evaluates alternative  maintenance strategies, it runs the risk that it will degrade the long-term  condition of ships and discourage crew support for rotational crewing.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: To ensure that the nation’s multibillion-dollar investment in Navy ships  yields the greatest possible benefits at the lowest possible total cost, we  recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of the Navy  to take the following four actions:    Systematically evaluate the feasibility and cost-effectiveness for current  and potential application of several rotational crewing alternatives for its  surface forces by    establishing formal measurable goals, objectives, and metrics for  assessing feasibility, costs, and other factors, including crew quality of  life, and    systematically collecting and developing complete and accurate cost  data, including ship total ownership costs, in order to perform accurate  cost-effectiveness analyses.
Provide guidance that specifies standard policies and procedures for  rotating crews to ensure consistent management of and accountability for  ship operations during the rotation.
Systematically collect, record, and disseminate lessons learned pertaining  to rotational crewing in the Navy Lessons Learned System to enhance  knowledge sharing.
Conduct a study of the maintenance processes used for all ships involved  in rotating crews and examine, as part of the study, opportunities to  mitigate the crews’ concerns about maintenance workload to improve  their quality of life.
section_title: Agency Comments
paragraphs: In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD agreed with the  recommendations and cited actions it will take to implement the  recommendations.
DOD’s comments are presented in their entirety in appendix IV.
We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional  committees, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, and the  Director, Office of Management and Budget. We will make copies available  to others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no  charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please call me at  (202) 512-4402 or e-mail me at stlaurentj@gao.gov. Key staff members that  contributed to this report are listed in appendix V.
section_title: Appendix I: Ships Included in Our Evaluation
subsections: section_title: Ohio-Class Ballistic Missile Submarine
paragraphs: Nuclear-powered Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, also known as  Trident submarines, provide the sea-based leg of the triad of U.S. strategic  deterrent forces and the most survivable nuclear strike capability. There  are 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines in the fleet, homeported in  Kings Bay, Georgia, and Bangor, Washington. Each submarine has about  15 officers and 140 enlisted personnel. The average procurement unit cost  for each Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine is $2 billion (in fiscal year  2004 dollars).
To maintain a constant at-sea presence, a Blue-Gold rotational crewing  concept is employed on these submarines. Each ship has a “Blue” Crew  and a “Gold” Crew, each with its own respective ship command. The ship  deploys with one of these crews for 77 days, followed by a 2- to 3-day crew  turnover and a 35-day maintenance period. For example, after a Blue Crew  deployment, the Gold Crew takes command of the boat after a 3-day  turnover process. The Blue Crew assists the Gold Crew in conducting  maintenance repairs. During the Gold Crew’s patrol, the Blue Crew stands  down and enters a training cycle in its homeport.
section_title: Spruance-Class Destroyer
paragraphs: The DD-963 Spruance-class destroyer has multimission offensive and  defensive capabilities, and it can operate independently or as part of  other naval formations. These ships were developed for the primary  mission of antisubmarine warfare. Many of these ships were subsequently  modernized with a vertical launch system and a Tomahawk cruise missile  capability that greatly expanded the role of the destroyer in strike  warfare. The crew consists of 30 officers and 352 enlisted personnel.  The average procurement unit cost is $489.6 million (in fiscal year  2004 dollars).
The Pacific Fleet conducted Sea Swap rotational crewing with four ships  of this class, with the U.S.S. Fletcher being the forward-deployed unit. The  three other destroyers were decommissioned coincident with the crew  exchange. That is, each on-coming crew decommissioned its ship prior to  swapping with the off-going crew of the U.S.S. Fletcher. As a result, after  their 6-month deployment, the off-going crewmembers dispersed to a  variety of new assignments, just as if their own ship were being  decommissioned. Further, the Spruance-class destroyer swap rotation was  initially planned on three ships but was extended by adding a fourth  destroyer. As a result, the U.S.S. Fletcher remained deployed for over  22 months. All of the Spruance-class destroyers will be decommissioned  by the end of fiscal year 2006.
section_title: Arleigh Burke-Class Guided Missile Destroyer
paragraphs: The DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers—first  commissioned in July 1991, with primary homeports in San Diego and  Norfolk—provide multimission offensive and defensive capabilities,  operating independently or as part of other naval formations. The DDG-51  is equipped with the Aegis combat system, a vertical launching system for  launching antiaircraft and Tomahawk missiles, and an advanced  antisubmarine warfare system. Each destroyer crews 23 officers and  300 enlisted personnel, and has a procurement average unit cost of  $976 million (in fiscal year 2004 dollars).
Navy plans call for a force of 62 Arleigh Burke-class guided missile  destroyers. At the end of fiscal year 2004, this force will total 43 ships. The  Navy is conducting a Sea Swap rotational crewing system to rotate entire  crews from one hull to another on selected ships in the Naval Surface  Force Pacific Command’s fleet of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
section_title: Cyclone-Class Patrol Coastal
paragraphs: The Cyclone-class patrol coastal ships are small Navy vessels used to  conduct surveillance and shallow-water interdiction operations in support  of maritime homeland security operations and coastal patrol of foreign  shores. The Cyclone-class patrol coastal ship first entered into service  in 1993. The patrol coastal force consists of 13 ships—4 stationed in  San Diego, California, and 9 in Little Creek, Virginia. The crew consists of  4 officers and 24 enlisted personnel. The procurement average unit cost is  $19.4 million (in fiscal year 2004 dollars).
The Navy is using a crew swap model in which the entire crew of  28 crewmembers rotates from one hull to another. The rotations are  occurring between patrol coastal ships in the United States and those  deployed in the Arabian Gulf to increase operation days and reduce transit  times. Operational requirements have delayed the decommissioning of  8 ships and the transfer of 5 ships equipped with loading ramps to the  Coast Guard.
section_title: High Speed Vessel Two (HSV-2) Swift
paragraphs: The HSV-2 Swift is a high speed (almost 50 knots), wave-piercing  aluminum-hulled catamaran that was acquired as an interim mine  warfare command and support ship and a platform for conducting joint  experimentation, including Marine Corps sea basing. The Navy leased and  accepted delivery of the catamaran from the builder, Incat Australia, in  Australia, in August 2003. The Swift was leased for 1 year at a cost of  $27 million, with a 4-year option ($58 million).
The Swift employs two crews of 41 members each and uses the Blue-Gold  crewing option. The Gold Crew is based out of the Naval Amphibious Base  Little Creek, Norfolk, Virginia. It operates the ship as a joint experimental  platform with Marine Corps troops embarked, testing experimental and  near-shore combat ship concepts. It also conducts special operations  warfare. The Blue Crew is based out of Naval Station, Ingleside, Texas.  This crew operates the ship as a mine warfare command and control ship.  The Mine Warfare Command is in charge of coordinating overall mission  scheduling for the ship and crews. The crews are responsible for the ship,  but not its mission equipment. Each command that brings modules aboard  ship must supply personnel to operate the modules. The Swift operates on  a nominal 117-day cycle (plus or minus 10 days), including a 3-to-4 day  turnover between crews, with a 4-month on/4-month off cycle. Crew  exchanges take place in the crews’ respective homeports or at overseas  locations.
section_title: Next Generation Guided Missile Destroyer, the DD(X)
paragraphs: The DD(X) is a next generation, multimission surface combatant ship  tailored for land attack that has not been built. The Navy intends to  operate the DD(X) independently or as part of other naval formations.  The DD(X) is expected to provide precision firepower at long ranges in  support of forces ashore using two 155-mm advanced gun systems and  80 vertical-launch system tubes for the Tomahawk cruise missiles and  other weapons.
For fiscal year 2005, the Navy is requesting $221 million to begin building  the first DD(X) and $1.2 billion for research and development for the  program. The first ship is planned for delivery to the Navy in 2012.  The Navy estimates that the first DD(X) will cost about $2.8 billion,  including about $1.0 billion in detailed design and nonrecurring  engineering costs for the class. The Navy earlier indicated it was planning  to procure 24 DD(X) vessels through fiscal year 2017, before shifting to  procurement of the next generation cruiser in fiscal year 2018. Recently,  however, the Navy indicated it might accelerate the start of the cruiser  procurement to sometime between fiscal year 2011 and 2014 and reduce  the number of DD(X) destroyers it intends to buy to between 10 to 16.
Current DD(X) design planning anticipates a crew size of 125 to  175 persons. The procurement contract establishes the requirement to  consider deploying ships up to 3 years and requires the design agent to  conduct and complete an analysis of crewing options that would support  extended forward deployments, including standard, Sea Swap, Horizon,  and Blue-Gold crewing options. The contract also requires the design  agent to ensure that the DD(X) system can be effectively operated with an  optimized crew and provide the crew with the highest quality of life, while  minimizing total ownership cost.
section_title: Littoral Combat Ship
paragraphs: The littoral combat ship—a new class of Navy surface combatants and  the smallest member in the DD(X) family of next generation surface  combatant ships—is intended to be fast, agile, stealthy, affordable, and  tailored for specific missions, such as antisubmarine, antisurface, or mine  warfare in heavily contested littoral, or near-shore, waters, and it will use  interchangeable mission modules tailored for specific missions. The  Navy’s goal is to develop a platform that can be fielded in relatively large  numbers to support a wide range of joint missions, with reconfigurable  mission modules to assure access to the littorals for the Navy forces in  the face of threats from surface craft, submarines, and mines. It is also  expected to have the capability to deploy independently to overseas  littoral regions and remain on station for extended periods either with a  battle group or through at-sea replenishment. Baseline ship planning is for  a single crew; rotational crewing concepts are being explored as a  secondary option. Crew size is expected to range between 15 to 50 core  crewmembers, which do not include the crew for the mission package.
The Navy has plans to build 56 ships, with the first to be delivered in fiscal  year 2007 for an estimated cost of $20 billion. Each sea frame hull has an  average unit cost of $147.5 million to $216.4 million (in fiscal year 2004  dollars). The mission modules’ average procurement cost is $177 million  (in fiscal year 2004 dollars) per ship set. The resulting average cost for a  littoral combat ship platform is $324.6 million to $393.4 million (in fiscal  year 2004 dollars).
section_title: Appendix II: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To assess whether the Navy has systematically evaluated the feasibility  and cost-effectiveness of rotational crewing concepts for existing and  future classes of surface ships, we interviewed Department of Defense  (DOD) and Navy Headquarters and fleet officials, met with cost analysis  experts in the government and the private sector, reviewed key acquisition  documents and crew employment plans, and reviewed rotational crewing  studies performed for and by the Navy. Studies we reviewed included  “Future Force Operational Plan,” Executive Summary of the Horizon  Concept Generation Team, Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies  Group XVI (June 1997);  “Crew Rotation: The MCM-1 Experience,” Center for Naval Analyses (May  1998);  “Alternative Naval Crew Rotation Operations,” Center for Naval Analyses  (October 2001)  “Task Force Sierra Force Structure For The Future Phase One,” Naval War  College (undated);  “Alternative Approaches to Meet New Operational Commitments,” Briefing  by the Deep Blue Team, Chief of Naval Operations (undated);  “Sea Swap,” Warfare Analysis & Research Department, Naval War College  (June 2003); and  “Sea Swap Assessment,” Center for Naval Analyses (September 2004).
We also conducted meetings with several of the commanding and  executive officers of the Sea Swap destroyers, the HSV-2 Swift, and  selected patrol coastal ships and strategic ballistic missile submarines.
To assess whether the Navy has effectively managed rotational crewing on  surface ships and leveraged lessons learned, we visited Naval Surface  Force Command, U.S. Pacific Fleet, San Diego, California; Submarine  Group Nine Command, Bangor, Washington; Mine Warfare Command,  Corpus Christi, Texas; and Amphibious Group Two Command, Norfolk,  Virginia. We also met with officials from the Deputy Chief of Naval  Operations for Naval Warfare (Plans, Policies, and Operations; Surface  Warfare; and Submarine Warfare) to review Navy guidance and plans for  conducting crew rotations. We also conducted over 40 focus group  meetings with Navy officers and crews involved in crew rotations on the  guided missile destroyer U.S.S. Higgins, selected ballistic missile  submarines, the HSV-2 Swift, and selected patrol coastal ships (see page  58 for more information on the objective, scope, and methodology of the  focus groups). Further, we reviewed Navy Lessons Learned System  instructions and visited the Navy Warfare Development Command,  Newport, Rhode Island, to query the Navy Lessons Learned System to  determine recorded lessons learned pertaining to crew rotations.
To assess how ship maintenance may impact implementation of rotational  crewing, we reviewed relevant laws and Navy regulations pertaining to  maintenance of U.S. Navy ships. We discussed ship material condition and  associated sailor workload in over 25 focus groups with crews from the  Sea Swap guided missile destroyers and from selected patrol coastal ships  that had participated in crew rotations. We also obtained ship material  condition assessments, called Total Ship Readiness Assessments, for the  U.S.S. Higgins and the U.S.S. Decatur. We discussed the methodology and  results of the assessments with officials from the Fleet Technical Support  Center, San Diego, California; the Southwest Regional Maintenance  Center, Commander Pacific Fleet, San Diego, California; the Naval Surface  Warfare Center, Corona Division, Corona, California; and the Naval  Surface Force Pacific, San Diego, California. We met with and obtained  maintenance guidance and reports from Navy officials at Combined Fleet  Forces Command, Norfolk, Virginia; Surface Force Atlantic, Norfolk,  Virginia; Surface Force Pacific, San Diego, California; Commander  U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu, Hawaii; Amphibious Group Two Command,  Little Creek, Virginia; and maintenance experts in the Offices of the  Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition)  and the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C. We also obtained  written responses to our questions from U.S. Naval Forces Central  Command. In addition, we reviewed the Center for Naval Analyses’s  Sea Swap Assessment report and discussed the report’s findings with  officials from the Center.
To compare reenlistment rates for crews on Sea Swap guided missile  destroyers and non-Sea Swap guided missile destroyers in the U.S. Pacific  Fleet, we obtained Unit Honor Roll reports, derived from the Enlisted  Master File, from the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Honolulu, Hawaii.  We did not analyze Spruance-class destroyer data for two reasons: (1) we  did not conduct focus groups with these crews and (2) the rotational  crewing experience was not as complete or complicated as that  experienced by crews on Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers.  Based upon discussions with Pacific Fleet officials we also excluded  selected ship crews from our non-Sea Swap guided missile ship analysis  because we wanted the ships we analyzed to reflect the standard ship and  crew option as closely as possible. The ships and crews we excluded were:  (1) precommissioning crews because of their small sample sizes and  nondeployed status, (2) the U.S. Milius and its crew because it was an  optimal manning experiment ship, and (3) the U.S. Paul Hamilton  because this crew was on an extended, 10-month deployment. We  compiled reenlistment averages for the ships we analyzed in 6-month  blocks that roughly corresponded with Sea Swap guided missile destroyer  program and crew deployments, beginning November 1, 2001, and ending  on April 30, 2004, and that included pre-deployment, deployment and post- deployment data for these crews.
While we did not validate the casualty report and sailor reenlistment data  used in this report, we discussed the data with DOD officials to determine  that the data were sufficiently reliable for our analysis. We did validate the  Navy Lessons Learned System data and determined the data were  sufficiently reliable for our analysis. We conducted our review from July  2003 through July 2004 in accordance with generally accepted government  auditing standards.
subsections: section_title: Focus Groups with Crews on Rotational Crewing Ships
paragraphs: We conducted focus group meetings with Navy submarine and ship  officers and enlisted personnel who were involved in crew rotations.  Focus groups involve structured small group discussions designed to gain  more in-depth information about specific issues that cannot easily be  obtained from single or serial interviews. As with typical focus group  methodologies, our design included multiple groups with varying group  characteristics but some homogeneity—such as rank and responsibility— within groups. Each group involved 7 to 10 participants. Discussions  were held in a structured manner, guided by a moderator who used a  standardized list of questions to encourage participants to share their  thoughts and experiences. Our overall objective in using a focus group  approach was to obtain views, insights, and feelings of Navy submarine  and ship officers and enlisted personnel involved in crew rotations.
subsections: section_title: Scope of Our Focus Groups
paragraphs: To gain broad perspectives, we conducted over 40 separate focus group  sessions with multiple groups of Navy ship officers and enlisted personnel  involved in crew rotations on the guided missile destroyer U.S.S. Higgins,  selected ballistic missile submarines, the HSV-2 Swift, and selected patrol  coastal ships. Table 4 identifies the composition of the focus groups on  each of the vessels. Across focus groups, participants were selected to  ensure a wide distribution of officers, enlisted personnel, seniority, and  ship departments. GAO analysts traveled to each naval station to conduct  the majority of the focus groups. Six of the focus groups were conducted  on board the U.S.S. Higgins while it transited to its homeport after its  extended deployment.
section_title: Methodology for Our Focus Groups
paragraphs: A guide was developed to assist the moderator in leading the discussions.  The guide helped the moderator address several topics related to  crew rotations: training, maintenance, infrastructure and operations,  management and oversight, readiness, crew characteristics, quality of life,  lessons learned, and overall satisfaction with the rotational crewing  experience. Each focus group discussion began with the moderator  describing the purpose of our study and explaining how focus groups  work. Participants were assured anonymity of their responses, in that  names would not be directly linked to their responses in write-ups of the  sessions and that all of the responses for the session would be  summarized. The participants were then asked open-ended questions  about the impact of crew rotations on each of the topics. All focus group  questions were moderated by a GAO analyst who was assisted by a GAO  subject matter expert, while two assistants took notes.
section_title: Content Analysis
paragraphs: We performed a systematic content analysis of the open-ended responses  in order to categorize and summarize participants’ experiences with crew  rotations. Based on the primary topics developed in the focus group guide,  individual GAO analysts reviewed the responses from one of the crews  and created their own respective lists of subcategories within each of the  primary focus group topics. The analysts then met collectively to generate  a proposed list of topic primary categories and subcategories.
To ensure inter-rater reliability, one of our analysts reviewed the  responses from each vessel type and assigned each comment to a  corresponding category. Another analyst also reviewed each response and  independently assigned the same comment to a corresponding category.
Any comments that were not assigned to the same category were then  reconciled and adjudicated by the two analysts, which led to the  comments being placed into one or more of the resulting categories.  Agreement regarding each placement was reached between at least two  analysts. All initial disagreements regarding placement into categories  were discussed and reconciled. The responses in each category were then  used in our evaluation of how the Navy’s experiences with rotational  crewing have been effectively managed and the effect of maintenance  overseas on ships homeported in the United States during extended  deployments.
section_title: Limitations of Focus Groups
paragraphs: Methodologically, focus groups are not designed to (1) demonstrate the  extent of a problem or to generalize results to a larger population,  (2) develop a consensus to arrive at an agreed-upon plan or make  decisions about what actions to take, or (3) provide statistically  representative samples or reliable quantitative estimates. Instead, they are  intended to generate in-depth information about the focus group  participants’ reasons for the attitudes held toward specific topics and to  offer insights into the range of concerns and support for an issue.
The projectability of the information produced by our focus groups is  limited for several reasons. First, they represent the responses of Navy  ship officers and enlisted personnel from more than 40 selected groups.  Second, while the composition of the groups was designed to assure a  distribution of Navy officers, enlisted personnel, seniority, and ship  departments, the groups were not randomly sampled. Third, participants  were asked questions about their specific experiences with crew rotations.  The experiences of other Navy ship officers and personnel involved in  crew rotations, who did not participate in our focus group, may have  varied.
Because of these limitations, we did not rely entirely on focus groups, but  rather used several different methodologies to corroborate and support  our conclusions to objectives two and three.
section_title: Appendix III: Summary List of Department of the Navy Guidance Implementing 10 U.S.C. 7310
paragraphs: Department of the Navy guidance related to the implementation of  Title 10, United States Code, section 7310(a) restrictions on overseas  maintenance, or that define terms used in the law, is noted below.
subsections: section_title: Chief of Naval Operations
paragraphs: Chief of Naval Operations Instruction 4700.7K (July 2003), “Maintenance  Policy for U.S. Navy Ships,” defines voyage repairs as “corrective  maintenance of mission- or safety-essential items necessary for a ship to  deploy or to continue on its deployment.”
section_title: Naval Sea Systems Command
paragraphs: Naval Sea Systems Command Fleet Modernization Program Management  and Operations Manual (June 2002, Rev. 2), SL720-AA-MAN-010,  Glossary, defines voyage repairs as “emergency work necessary to repair  damage sustained by a ship to enable the ship to continue on its mission  and which can be accomplished without requiring a change in the ship’s  operating schedule or the general streaming notice in effect.”
section_title: Military Sealift Command
paragraphs: Commander Military Sealift Command Instruction 4700.15A  (February 2, 2000), “Accomplishing Ship Repair in Foreign Shipyards,”  states that voyage repairs include    corrective maintenance on mission or safety essential items necessary for  a ship to deploy, to continue on its deployment, or comply with regulatory  requirements;    scheduled maintenance, only to the extent that said maintenance is  absolutely necessary to ensure machinery and equipment operational  reliability or comply with regulatory requirements; and    voyage repairs do not include corrective maintenance actions that may be  deferred until the next scheduled regular overhaul and drydocking  availability in the United States or Guam without degrading operational  readiness, habitability standards, or personnel safety, or adversely  impacting regulatory compliance.
section_title: Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense
subsections: section_title: GAO’s Comments
paragraphs: The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of Defense’s letter  dated October 25, 2004.  1.  We have added a discussion of the methodology we used in our Sea  Swap destroyer reenlistment analysis. See appendix II.  2.  No change needed in report.  3.  No change needed in report.  4.  We agree that expanded scope predeployment inspections and  maintenance for ships scheduled for extended deployments are  prudent. We also agree that ships scheduled for extended deployments  would benefit from a clearly defined process to delineate those  increased requirements.  5.  Our report noted that increased maintenance tasks contributed to  diminished crew morale. We agree with DOD’s comment that many  other factors also contributed to the diminished morale for sailors  crewing on rotational crewing ships.  6.  Our report did not recommend revising Title 10 requirements.  7.  No change needed in report.  8.  No change needed in report.  9.  No change needed in report.  10.  No change needed in report.  11.  No change needed in report.
section_title: Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Acknowledgments
paragraphs: Jim Bancroft, Kelly Baumgartner, Larry Bridges, Lee Cooper, Corrie  Dodd-Burtch, Joseph Kirschbaum, Kate Lenane, Elizabeth Morris, Richard  Payne, Charles Perdue, Terry Richardson, Roderick Rodgers, Bill Russell,  Rebecca Shea, Jennifer Thomas, Julie Tremper, John Van Schaik, and  R.K. Wild made key contributions to this report.
section_title: GAO’s Mission
paragraphs: The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation and  investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its  constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and  accountability of the federal government for the American people. GAO  examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies;  and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help  Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO’s  commitment to good government is reflected in its core values of  accountability, integrity, and reliability.
section_title: Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony
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subsections: section_title: Order by Mail or Phone
section_title: To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
section_title: Congressional Relations
section_title: Public Affairs