No specialists

The Navy is supposedly taking to the Silicon Valley idea that experts are passe, at least for a number of occupations on the sea. A sailor must be able to do several different jobs, not just one.

The ship’s most futuristic aspect, though, is its crew. The LCS was the first class of Navy ship that, because of technological change and the high cost of personnel, turned away from specialists in favor of “hybrid sailors” who have the ability to acquire skills rapidly. It was designed to operate with a mere 40 souls on board—one-fifth the number aboard comparably sized “legacy” ships and a far cry from the 350 aboard a World War II destroyer. The small size of the crew means that each sailor must be like the ship itself: a jack of many trades and not, as 240 years of tradition have prescribed, a master of just one.

...

On the bridge, five crew members do the jobs usually done by 12, thanks to high-tech display screens and the ship’s several thousand remote sensors. And belowdecks, once-distinct engineering roles—electrician’s mate, engine man, machinist, gas-turbine technician—fall to the same handful of sailors.

I don't know about now, but back in WW-II submariners had specialties, but were supposed to be able to handle any job on the boat--in an emergency you might have to run whatever you were near. Of course, submarine school was tough and most applicants washed out.

I'm not sure if the Navy is trying to make a virtue of necessity. Understaffing was one of the contributing factors in the Fitzgerald crash. So was lack of maintenance, and I'm not quite clear how having fewer sailors makes that easier.

My wife has just finished the first draft of a novel about a submariner in WW-II. Reading about the real stories reminds you that the enemy gets a vote on your staffing. The Navy had lots of sailors on those boats for three very good reasons.

1. Men get killed. You need "spares" to keep fighting, or just to keep the boat from sinking.
2. When you're exhausted, frightened, or surprised, practice and habit make the difference. You know how to handle the shells because you practice all the time. If you have to bring in an inexperienced sailor, somebody has to spend the time and attention to keep them doing the right thing--assuming there's somebody left in his corner.
3. Flexible thinkers/learners aren't the majority. When you start losing boats and sailors, you need to be a little less picky about who you draft. Simple jobs may be boring, but you can train most anybody to do them.

Maybe the Navy brass think the next war will go all our way, with no jamming of the inter-ship ethernet, no scrambling of our sensors, and all our wonderful defensive hardware working just as advertised: "fire the cruise missiles and go down to the mess for a beer."

I doubt that's true for near-peer opponent, and it sure isn't true for a peer enemy.

I'm guessing this is another exercise in make-believe, betting the sailors' lives, and ultimately ours, that their powerpoint models work.