Manpower Issues Could Force Navy to Idle 17 Support Ships

(Dreamstime)

A dearth of qualified civilian mariners could put 17 U.S. Navy support ships out of commission, U.S. Naval Institute News reported Thursday.

A “force generation reset” plan drafted by the Military Sealift Command identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, a fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transports, and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an extended maintenance period where their crews would be sent to other ships in the fleet, USNI News reported, citing three people familiar with the plan.

MSC operates a fleet of logistic ships that refuel and resupply the Navy’s ships around the world and are crewed by 5,500 civilians who are employed by the Navy. If the Navy and MSC elect to reassign the crews of all 17 ships, it could free between 600-700 sailors to the larger MSC pool, USNI News reported.

A defense official confirmed the basic outline of the plan to USNI News, and two sources identified the forward-deployed sea bases as the USS Lewis Puller in Bahrain under U.S. Central Command, and the USS Herschel “Woody” Williams at Naval Support Activity Souda Bay in Greece under U.S. European and Africa Command.

A Navy official contacted by USNI News acknowledged the service was working on a plan to reposition civilian mariners but did not provide details.

MSC has had trouble retaining mariners because of a punishing schedule and the aftereffects of severe COVID-19 prevention measures ordered by retired MSC Cmdr. Rear Adm. Michael Wettlaufer, USNI News reported.

“[During] COVID nobody was getting off the ship, mariners were being treated poorly, and so they started to quit,” a retired MSC mariner told USNI News. Since then, mariners have been quitting at a greater rate than MSC can hire new ones.

Another former MSC mariner told USNI News he enjoyed sailing with MSC, but he saw his older peers deal with divorce and estrangement from their children and didn’t want that for himself.

“This is basically the result of many years of neglect and mismanagement of their force,” Sal Mercogliano, a former MSC mariner and associate professor of history at Campbell University in North Carolina, told USNI News. “They are just burning through people.”