Possible new humanitarian/rescue operation coming up.

[KenV]

The US Navy has big bucks and is known for its manpower profligacy compared to the RN; just look at the respective complements of any similar vessels. Personnel constitute the greatest through-life cost of any ship and the RN would never countenance having three crews in order to maintain one at sea. With only 23,000 regulars and 250 full time reservists in the RN vice 326,000 regulars and 107,000 reserves in the USN, it is much too small for a start.

The reason for the multiple crews for the LCSs is they are very lightly manned. When at sea there is so much work that the crew can't take the work load very long. So every two ships has three crews. The work load is high in port also, but in port the ship's crew is augmented by shore personnel, some USN, some civilian contractor. And the LCSs have the highest sea time to port time ratio of any USN vessel. They are at sea a LOT.