Navy Ships

By transferring fuel, munitions, freight, foods, and other supplies to Navy combat ships while steaming along side them, Navy auxiliary ships allow the combat ships to remain at sea for extended periods. This report (1) discusses the Navy's plan for turning over the operation of military crewed auxiliary ships to its Military Sealift Command for civil service or commercial crewing, (2) estimates whether cost savings would be realized if the Navy turned over the operation of the remaining military crewed auxiliary ships to the Military Sealift Command, and (3) analyzes the relative costs of running a Navy auxiliary ship with a civil service crew and with a commercial crew. GAO also calculates the increase in the merchant mariner pool if the operation of the multiproduct ships was turned over to the Military Sealift Command.

GAO noted that: (1) the Navy plans to turn over the operation of its remaining three ammunition ships to MSC for crewing with civil service mariners; (2) as of May 1997, the Navy had not decided on whether to turn over the operation of the remaining seven auxiliary ships as well as the single ship under construction to MSC; (3) all eight of these ships are multiproduct ships; (4) based on Navy cost data and MSC cost estimates, the Navy could save about $139.6 million annually by turning over the operation of these eight multiproduct ships to MSC for crewing with civil service mariners; (5) this savings is due primarily to a much smaller crew size than has been traditional on military crewed auxiliary ships; (6) these savings would be offset by a one-time conversion cost of $30 million to $45 million per ship, or about $300 million for all eight ships, to meet Coast Guard standards; (7) MSC might also need fewer ships to provide underway replenishment since unlike the Navy, it does not have the personnel and operating limitations on the number of operating days per ship and on days at sea per crewmember; (8) three other studies conducted since 1990 by the Center for Naval Analyses, the Institute for Defense Analyses, and the Naval Audit Service have also identified the potential for large cost savings if the Navy were to transfer additional ships to MSC; (9) these studies' projected savings were also primarily due to the smaller crew sizes on MSC ships; (10) the Navy does not intend to divert from its current policy of not using commercial mariners to crew auxiliary ships; (11) its position is that these ships must be crewed by military or civil service personnel due to their military mission; (12) however, if it were to change this policy, GAO's analysis shows that it would cost the Navy about $321,000, or about 5 percent more a year, to operate a commonly used MSC oiler ship with commercial crews than with civil service crews; (13) the difference in costs is primarily attributable to higher fringe benefit costs for commercial crews; (14) with respect to the size of the mariner pool under different crewing alternatives, GAO calculated that the pool of U.S. civil service mariners would increase by about 1,700 merchant mariners if the 8 remaining auxiliary ships were turned over to MSC and were crewed by civil service mariners; and (15) the pool of commercial merchant mariners would increase by about 2,700 to 3,400 mariners if these same ships were crewed by commercial mariners.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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