A friend of mine is a naval reservist in his middle forties. He has been on active duty for about four years. He does that by requesting active duty cruises. He has had a heart attack and has an artificial hip.
He told me that not one of the vessels he served on was much over seventy five per cent manned. He does not paint a pretty picture of our naval ability.
That's discouraging. The Navy has been working on a "minimum manning" concept to reduce workload and manpower requirements of ships at sea. It's way overdue. But it's only part of the solution.
How the Navy constructs, trains, maintains, and employs must be totally revamped to restore efficiency to the fleets. This would help immensely with the manpower situation. But would do little to expand the Navy.
The fundamental shift required of our Navy demands "thinking outside the box". Unfortunately, we historically implement those types of solutions only in time of war.