Correct, that’s what I’m getting at. The question is how long of a delay for HSC warrants moving from scenario A to B, and how long does that swap take, and then how long to swap back from B to A?
I’d imagine there would probably be calls to bring back one of the CLF Sierras to the carrier temporarily, or the Romeo dets would have to take on the burden of the now trucked-out Romeo. These are all just opportunity cost decisions and are by no means earth shattering, but it just seems like some logistical hoops we’ll inevitably have to jump through.
Could that all be mitigated by a 4-bird Sierra det? Probably. Navy leadership has answered questions about 3 vs 4 bird dets many times before (ie: USAF and Army can do RQS/SOF dets with 3, so why does Navy need 4?), and the answer has always been that Navy maintenance requirements and timelines are different than our sister services, and it usually pans out to needing 4 to make 2 over a full deployment. There will definitely be several D phases that come due on the CVW deployment, and that’s planned maintenance. I’d imagine the HSM squadron would be asked to truck out while HSC does the D phase. In short, our bosses are choosing to line up a lot of holes in the Swiss cheese with a 3-bird det, and our bosses are going to act surprised when the final few inevitably line up.
