Next-gen warships will need half the crew of current vessels

The services are also embroiled in a row over diversity, with soldiers told to avoid “Christian elements” in Acts of Remembrance on Armistice Day. Mr Howie said further technological advances may ease pressure on staffing problems, pointing to how crew sizes have reduced significantly on some ships already. For example, the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth can operate with a crew of about 750 – down from the thousands previously required for vessels of her size. Asked whether further advances could help ease recruitment issues, Mr Howie said: “If you take HMS Queen Elizabeth, she was designed with a core crew of about 750. We’re doing a crew of about 105 on Type 31, so realistically we should be aiming to half that number for batch two.” Mr Howie added that even bigger crew reductions could potentially be delivered, taking numbers below 50 in future, but that this would depend on decisions about how to manage damage control in modern combat, for example to put out fires and deal with hull breaches.