"US Navy cuts ship procurement in budget request" Topic

USN slashed its ship procurement by 20% for 2021.

The cuts include reducing Virginia class subs and new frigate from 2 of each to 1 of each. Proposed cut to Arleigh Burke production hasn't transpired thankfully.

Also interesting is that the USN is requesting to retire 4 of their Littoral Combat Ships despite these ships being some of the newest in the fleet (albeit worthless in most combat situations).

The 355 ship target seems farther and farther away.

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Also of note are proposed cutbacks to some USMC programs including air defence radar and amphibious vehicle modernisation programs in favour of new build projects (of which the DoD has increasingly a history of terrible management ).

They never should have made more, after the first two failed LCS (Little Crappy Ship) designs.

They could have been, and should have been much better, for a lot less, but the design and procurement process of the USN is apparently broken, leading to more wasted, hard-earned, taxpayer money, at a time when we can not afford it.

Well, it would be really good to get USN capital investments (ie, new ships) out of the operational budget.

When the Army or Air Force want to build new bases or even just new buildings on an existing base, that's a separate item from their usual budget!

They also need to totally recapitalise their ship maintenance facilities. Congress is giving them $11 USD billion for this but I don't know if that is enough.

No point buying new ships if they can't be maintained.

You need to get politicians out of the procurement process as far as is possible (almost impossible I know but that is what drives rather less than effective "transformational" programmes such as LCS and DDG1000). Nobody in the navy wanted them, many of the issues with all three classes were clearly apparent to the denizens of the Washington Navy Yard. Of the three the trimaran LCS is the one with the greatest scope for becoming something really useful, that monster flight deck and mission bay lends some real opportunities.

The LCS program was a joke.
The whole idea was to get a ship that could fight in shallow waters. Think "green water" navy. We want a fast ship with a shallow draft. Great. There are lots of successful designs out there.
I think what was initially envisioned was something akin to the Cyclone Class but with a bigger gun an a helo deck. What we end up with is not one, but two classes of obscenely overpriced under-gunned patrol boats the size of frigates. It's rather like putting out an RFP for a mid-sized sedan and getting back a Greyhound bus.