88 Xu Xiake - Sea Swap
The number of crew members on the Liaoning aircraft carrier is less than 2,000, while the 88 and 89 ships can each accommodate 2,500 people. Most crew rotation schemes recommend an increased crew to ship ratio, such as the 2:1 (Blue/Gold) crew ratio used on ballistic missile submarines. A major challenge for carrier crew rotations is the size of the crew and accompanying air wing.
When the aircraft carrier has long-term ocean-going activities, the aircraft carrier support ship may bring the second set of personnel to the sea at the same time. During the long-term offshore deployment of the aircraft carrier, regular rotation could be carried out. Half of the personnel will be on duty on the aircraft carrier and the other half will be on the support ship. This would reduce the carrier's return to the home port of the country. The ferry time will extend the time of each deployment to the sea (because China does not have a large number of overseas stations like the United States to support personnel rotation).
Possible warship deployment options divide into four strategies defined by a two-by-two matrix whose axes represent when forces deploy forward (either periodically or permanently) and where they spend most of their time (either home waters or forward). One option represents forces that deploy forward periodically (such as for routine, cyclical operations). Another represents forces that can are deployed forward for extended periods (returning only periodically to home waters). The set of options considered in this sector focused on crew rotation schemes. A third represents forces permanently homeported overseas (like those the US has in Japan). And the fourth represents forces permanently based in home waters that surge forward when required. Homeporting ships in countries in Oceania or Southeast Asia would save them about 20 days transit time, but would still require a number of ships available for rotation.
Sea Swap was a US Navy crew rotation scheme, but different from those proposed in the past. American research concluded that the single most effective deployment strategy for surface combatants to pursue is crew swapping. The more time spent in transit, the more ships that are needed to keep one ship forward continuously.
The US Navy tries to provide 5 to 10 days in-port time for ships transiting to or from the Persian Gulf. These stops are “overhead” and add from 10 to 20 days of transit time, exacerbating time on station calculations. The decision to eliminate port calls en route to the Persian Gulf would affect a number of other factors besides force structure. Both recruiting and retention, for example, would be adversely affected. The Navy still touts itself as an adventure and its advertisements have traditionally featured sailors touting the ports of call they have made during their deployments.
Ships maintained under a phased-maintenance concept go into the shipyard more often, but for shorter periods of time than ships getting regular overhauls. The total time in the shipyard is roughly the same. The advantage of phased maintenance is that ships can stay in the deployment cycle all the time.
One obvious way to increase time forward is to lengthen deployments. Eight- and nine-month deployments were not uncommon in the US Navy during and just after the Vietnam War, so there is a history to draw on - mostly an unhappy history. The cost of these deployments was felt keenest in morale, retention, and material condition of ships.
Extending ship deployment length while swapping crews in mid deployment appeared to offer tremendous potential for improving on-station time without increasing either OPTEMPO, PERSTEMPO or, to a great extent, ship wear and tear. Essentially, crew swapping eliminates every other ship transit. In the case of US Navy deployments from the West Coast to the Persian Gulf, eliminating every other transit provides an additional 2 to 2.5 months of onstation time for each pair of ships without changing turnaround ratio or OPTEMPO for either crew or ship. Looked at from a different perspective, crew swapping reduces the number of ships required to keep one in the Gulf from about 7 to about 5.25.
In 2004 the US Navy Sea Swap demonstrated efficiency by deploying a single ship to the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf theater of operations for 18 months in order to increase forward presence. Higgins and Flectcher provided continuous presence, swapping crews at six-month intervals from November 2002 to June 2004. CNA's evaluation of the initiative found it to be successful overall. The participating ships generated about 33 percent more forward presence than traditional deployers.
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