(DailyVantage.com) – Mariner Sealift Command (MSC) plans to remove its crews from 17 Navy support vessels due to the lack of qualified mariners.
Sealift Command’s “force generation reset” plan includes a fleet oiler, 12 Speaheard-Class Expeditionary Fast Transports, two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, and two forward-deployed expeditionary sea bases. The vessels would undergo “extended maintenance” while their crews would be redeployed to other ships in the fleet.
Sidelining the 17 vessels would reduce the number of civilian mariners aboard by up to 700.
Defense sources confirmed to USNI News last week that the forward-deployed sea bases impacted are USS Lewis Puller, which is based with US Central Command in Bahrain, and USS Hershel Woody Williams, which is based with US European and Africa Command in Souda Bay, Greece.
A Navy official confirmed that MSC was planning to retask its civilian mariners but did not give any details on which vessels would be impacted.
The US Navy has not approved MSC’s plans, which must get the green light from Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the chief of Naval Operations.
Sealift Command operates a fleet of ships that support Navy vessels, including resupply and refueling. MSC operates logistic ships throughout the world that are crewed by roughly 5,500 civilian mariners employed by the US Navy.
There are about 4,500 billets for civilian mariners on US support ships. Currently, there are only 1.27 mariners for each billet aboard an MSC support ship, a ratio MSC mariners described as unsustainable.
One former mariner told USNI News that this would mean that there are only 27 people ashore that are available to replace 100 mariners aboard for crew rotations. With a ratio like that, civilian mariners would have to be at sea for four months with only a month in between each rotation.
By reassigning the civilian mariners aboard 17 ships and freeing up between 600 and 700 people, the MSC could get the ratio up to 1.5 mariners for each billet.
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