dmereifield wrote:Evidence to help validate the previous statements of the 2SL (I think it was him) that manning issues were easing - didn't he say something about PoW now having a full crew or sufficient crew were now available to get all the escorts back active (I seem to remember something along these lines but don't recall the details)
It was the first sea lord who said:
“Despite having to endure some deficiencies in our manning over the last couple of years – which caused us to designate a couple of our frigates and destroyers as harbour training ships and adaptive force ships, running with a smaller ship’s companies – we’re now through that.
I’m pleased to say we have two crews for the two carriers [and] it’s not at the expense of manning elsewhere in the fleet.”But,
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... 1-_SPS.pdfhttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... 18_SPS.pdfsays the increase is not that large to cover the two escorts in extended readiness.
I read his argument that, the bad trend has stopped. Does "we’re now through that" means the 2 escorts in extended readiness has recommissioned? I have no such info. What he states is, he figured out a way to man PoW but do not explicitly says the 2 escort are now recommissioned. (Correct me if I'm wrong...).
Save the Royal Navy has a good article here. To my understanding, RN man-power just stopped decreasing, not yet increasing at pace.
https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/has-th ... -problems/I agree it is a positive trend. But we also know we need a few years to train those new comers. So 100 increase in trained personnel is much more important. That is great. At about half could be assigned to a ship, it means RN can "man" another River B2, which requires 60 crew including rotation, but not yet a T45 or T23, who requires ~200.