Apparently, you are unaware of the Navy term "watch". There are ALWAYS qualified personnel in position around the clock to man the Deck, Engineering (propulsion&other systems), Bridge/Navigation, Command Information Center (CiC), Weapons, Communications (Radio), Aviation departments and their respective divisions within said departments.
If fact, when even in a friendly port, they didn't allow the entire crew ashore for liberty. There must be enough personnel to get the ship underway in case of emergency or direct orders from the top. In my day, it was about a third of the crew stayed aboard and alternated "duty days" for liberty. That applied even my home port of San Diego which I think was every 4th "duty day".
The problem was not about enough man power, but seems to be something else. I won't speculate on what occurred just yet, but something is not right here. It wasn't about too many sleeping crew. BTW, large commercial vessels have the same kind of rotating watches.
I said most of the crew - this was was reported - that most were sleeping including the Captain
Not all of the crew
and yes, i understand “ watch “ duty because during 10 years of joint service I pulled my share in various agencies and during deployments
I have also heard that if there was any tactical maneuvering going on or any sign of a threat the Captain as a minimum would be on the bridge and few if any crew would be sleeping
Though i have only been on watch at sea on my own private vessel during overnight offshore passages and while at anchor
So at 2:30 AM with no alerts of a threat while stationary , off the shiiping lanes , in a holding area in the lee of several small islands, 65 miles off the harbor entrance - how much of the crew was on watch vs in quarters or on routine duty below deck?
As for the cargo,ship crew of 20 how many of them were on the bridge or on watch at 2:30am - “ most”?
We can only guess here but absent some huge failure of sensors and navigation systems, I’d think that the cause of the accident vis’a’vis the Fitzgerald is a lack of a timely command decision. Even with a sensor failure, you could look out the window. I’ve read that visual conditions were clear at the time.
If the AIS track that keeps getting posted is accurate it appears that the merchantman was driving a very erratic and confusing course. ARPA wouldn’t give a good plot. AIS would have been all over the place with course, speed and rate of turn changes. Visual observation would have shown several aspect changes by her lights. This alone would indicate a vessel in trouble, perhaps NUC that would cause me to stand well clear and not keep steering into danger. A crewman should have been given the task of tracking and reporting specifically that target.