"Navy Plans to Build Fewer Ships..." Topic

… Right as It's About to Get Busier.

"The U.S. Navy has finally and officially given up on long-standing plans to expand the fleet from today's 285 major warships to 313 sometime in the next couple decades. Instead, the expansion will halt at 306 large ships, according to the latest Navy planning document, obtained by Defense News.

Officially, the lower goal is a result of careful analysis of U.S. strategy, the needs of regional commanders, ship service-life and the capabilities of the shipbuilding industry. (Navy officials anticipated the shrinkage last year.) "A 306-ship combatant force [is] the current requirement to enable [the] Navy to deter and respond to crises and war," the sailing branch asserted. As the Navy sees it, it can do that by buying fewer surface warfare ships and more logistics vessels, as well as by pre-positioning warships in allied ports.

Unofficially, there is another huge factor: money. For all the talk inside the Pentagon about strategy driving budgets and not the other way around, the Navy is anticipating shrinkage right as it also anticipates playing a larger role in U.S. national security.

The seven-ship reduction is a "reflection of budget realities," Eric Wertheim, author of the definitive Combat Fleets of the World, tells Danger Room. Pentagon budgets have been steadily flattening for two years. And automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration and mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act, could slice another 10 percent off the military's top-line starting in March — assuming the White House and lawmakers don't reach a deficit-reduction agreement to avert sequestration.

Any way you cut it, there's not a lot of extra cash padding the Pentagon's wallet.

Ships ain't cheap. A single aircraft carrier can cost $12 USD billion — and the Navy intends to keep 11 of them. Destroyers, the workhorses of the fleet, range in price from $2 USD billion to $4 USD billion. The Navy projects keeping more than 80 of them in service. Even the Littoral Combat Ship, the much-maligned "inexpensive" near-shore fighter, sets back taxpayers around $600 USD million each for more than 50 copies.

To build all these ships at a pace of between seven and a dozen per year, the Navy gets only $15 USD billion or so annually from Congress. With unpredictable labor and materials costs, ship prices can rise unexpectedly. The Congressional Budget Office predicted the Navy's shipbuilding plan would end up costing 19 percent more than the Pentagon's own rosy estimates.

The small decrease in the fleet's future growth could help close the budgetary gap — assuming budgets don't fall further. That reflects more realistic planning on the part of the Pentagon…"
Full article here.
link

"Even if it doesn't, it's still by far the largest and most powerful maritime force on the planet."

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks for sharing this article Armand. I hadn't seen it.

"…as well as by pre-positioning warships in allied ports".

Apparently, the USN brass learned nothing from "The Cole Disaster".

Sounds to me like we can get one new ship a year by cutting off funds to Egypt.

Wonder how many others we can fund annually, via similar methods?

A votre service mon ami!.

Amicalement
Armand

The Fed pays out about $75 USD billion a day. It has revenues of only $20 USD billion a day. If the Fed were to cut spending on eveything, that's EVERYTHING (all defence, discretionary, fired all federal workers, stop paying all federal retirement, foreign aid, Obamacare, post office, etc., etc.) except Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security the Fed would still be a hole to the tune of $50 USD billion a day.

David Brooks (NY Times) suggested that in order to balance the budget we would have to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security by 1/3, and increase taxes by 1/3 across the board. Considering the fiscal mess we are in, I'm thrilled that we already have the Navy we do.

The good news is that our most likely enemies aren't in very good fiscal condition themselves and their navies have nowhere near the capability of the USN.

"Apparently, the USN brass learned nothing from "The Cole Disaster"."

How so?

"The good news is that our most likely enemies aren't in very good fiscal condition themselves and their navies have nowhere near the capability of the USN."

Until the ChiComs decide to call in their debt from the USA.

The sad thing is a big chunk of those 306 ships will be the LCS ships which are undergunned, over complicated, stupidly expensive and still years away from having a full set of the rather mediocre planned abilities.

Then there's the disastrous DDX program – 3 ships to be built at $3 USD billion a pop instead of 32!

If they went for a conventional frigate and destroyer replacement and saved money on development of LCS and DDX, I suspect they could have paid for 313 ships plus have spare change.

Bobgnar- Yeah, the Chinese could do that… and gut their import/export business and dynamite their own economy. Not flippin' likely…

"Apparently, the USN brass learned nothing from "The Cole Disaster"."

What? Cole was on a port call. Just like a hundred other ships every day of the year.

What do you propose? Leaving the fleet in the US? Kinda hard to project power in the South China Sea when the fleet is tied to a pier in San Diego…

"Until the ChiComs decide to call in their debt from the USA.'

Actually they can't 'call' their debt at all. They could sell their bonds, if they could find buyers and were prepared to take a major haircut on the deal.

Question: when you invest in something, do you do it thinking and hoping your investment will harm the thing you are investing in? Or do you invest in things you believe are strong and will give you a return on your money?

China dumping its US Bonds would not harm the US in the slightest. It would hurt China massively.

春节快乐

Pre-positioning them in allied ports, especially in 3rd world countries with dubious security, leaves them very vulnerable to low-tech attacks.

I'm assuming they are saying they'll spend a lot more time in port, overseas, than they do now, hence increasing their vulnerability to bombs delivered via speedboats, limpet mines (see the Italian, Japanese, and UK special forces ops in WWII against vessels in port), civilian aircraft, etc., while sitting in place, instead of cruising on patrol where they would be far safer.

Isn't the AF working on a missile that can be anywhere in the world in an hour? Wonder how many can be built for the yearly cost of a carrier and. Planes.

I may begin to be mildly worried if the US Navy ever shrunk to where it did not outnumber every other nation's fleets combined.