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  • Navy eyes cutting submarine force

    Any comments?

    http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...bmarine_force/

    Navy eyes cutting submarine force
    Plan would hurt New England
    By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | May 12, 2004

    WASHINGTON -- The US Navy is considering slashing its attack submarine force by as much as a third, according to an internal study, as a cost-saving measure that would dramatically reduce the workforce at facilities in New England that build and service the fleet.

    The classified study, which was described to the Globe by Navy officials who have seen it, proposes cutting the submarine fleet from 55 vessels to as few as 37. That reduction would be accomplished by retiring older Los Angeles-class submarines and buying fewer new Virginia-class subs.

    The attack submarine program accounts for nearly 16,000 jobs in New England. If a one-third cut in the program is made, orders planned for the Virginia-class boats to be built at the General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp. in Groton, Conn., would be cut by half, the officials said. Workloads at smaller Electric Boat facilities in Quonset Point and Newport, R.I., would also be scaled back.

    The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, 50 miles north of Boston and the nation's primary depot for overhauling nuclear-powered submarines, could be hit even harder, they said, since submarine maintenance is the main work done there. That facility, located across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, N.H., employs more than 4,500 people.

    The study was completed by the Navy's budget office with an eye toward recouping billions of dollars from the $64 billion planned for Virginia-class submarines, a program that is set to provide 30 new attack boats in the coming years, according to Navy and defense industry officials. They said it is one of several studies underway as the growing costs of the war in Iraq and ballooning budget deficits force the Bush administration to make tough choices in drafting a budget proposal for next year.

    But members of Congress from New England expressed dismay that the Pentagon is considering such a drastic reduction in one of the Navy's bulwarks, while not cutting other programs they consider unproven.

    "They have enough money," said Representative John Tierney, Democrat of Salem, who has more than 100 constituents who work at the Portsmouth shipyard. "We have $410 billion [in the defense budget], and you don't think there is enough money to protect our country?"

    He said the Pentagon needs to tackle waste and abuse, and noted that the multibillion-dollar National Missile Defense system "is not even tested and is not going to work" but remains a top priority for the Bush administration.

    The Navy study, the officials said, cites a number of possible scenarios for reducing the submarine force, including one that would reduce the fleet to the low 40s and one that would cut it to 37, or by nearly 20 boats. Each vessel costs well over $2 billion. The proposals would not affect the 18 nuclear-armed Trident submarines.

    The study also recommends permanently stationing nine submarines at Guam, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean, where they would be closer to areas where they are most commonly deployed, in part to monitor Russian and Chinese submarine fleets.

    A Navy official who asked not to be named said the study did not merely look at ways to save money but also reassessed the service's long-term needs for attack submarines. "It looks at the mission and, if you are going to give up this many boats, what is it that you're not going to do any more."

    He said the study concluded that the Navy could reduce its reliance on the attack subs to gather intelligence and instead deploy satellites or unmanned minisubs for that purpose, despite the military's demand for underwater intelligence-gathering having grown in recent years. Critics maintain that the alternatives would not be as effective in gathering intelligence on foreign submarines.

    The Navy would not officially comment on the budget deliberations, in keeping with a Defense Department policy not to discuss such proposals before final decisions are made. The service issued a general statement, saying: "The Navy continually assesses force structure to ensure we are tailored to best meet joint mission requirements both today and in the future. Several studies are currently underway to comprehensively assess our force structure as we work toward the 2006 budget submission."

    Still, talk of such a significant reduction is sending jitters through the submarine industrial base. Electric Boat has 8,800 employees in Groton, 2,200 on Quonset Point, and 64 engineering staff members in Newport, R.I.

    The Navy was hoping to maintain the attack submarine fleet at the current level by moving from one new Virginia-class submarine per year to building two annually beginning in 2009. Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia are the only submarine manufacturers; they now split the work. The first in the class, the USS Virginia, is to be delivered to the Navy this year.

    "Electric Boat's business is based almost entirely on construction and support of submarines for the United States Navy," said Neil Rumzel, a company spokesman. "We bring more than a century in this business, so it is certainly extremely important."

    Members of Congress recently told Defense Department officials of their concerns that Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is at severe economic risk if the submarine fleet is significantly reduced.

    "It is with deep concern that we note that the Navy is planning to reduce Portsmouth's Los Angeles-class maintenance workload in the 2008-2020 time period," lawmakers from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine told Navy Secretary Gordon England in an April 20 letter. In the last 50 years, Portsmouth has completed 74 major overhauls on attack and ballistic missile submarines, more than any other US shipyard.

    Bryan Bender can be reached at [email protected].

  • #2
    We need more Subs not less, if we cut them by a third we will have a little over 35. Sounds like a BS article to me.
    Last edited by Praxus; 12 May 04,, 20:49.

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