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USN 30-Year Fleet Structure Plan

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  • USN 30-Year Fleet Structure Plan

    Chris Cavas made this available partly because of my inquiries:

    http://www.defensenews.com/content/r..._fleetplan.pdf

    Posted 03/28/05 09:54

    U.S. Navy Sets 30-Year Plan
    Analysts Doubt Projection Is Affordable

    By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS


    The U.S. Navy’s new 30-year ship plan envisions two possible futures: either a growing fleet of more than 300 ships, stocked with surface combatants and amphibious warships, or a smaller version of today’s fleet. But analysts worry that neither option may really be affordable.

    The plan offers two options for the fleet of 2035: one with 260 ships, including 10 aircraft carriers, the second with 325 ships, including 11 carriers. The plans would add one or two dozen cruisers and destroyers costing about $3 billion apiece and up to 40 attack submarines, currently running about $2.5 billion per copy. The two options reflect uncertainty about new technologies, manning ideas, and forward-basing concepts, Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations, told lawmakers last month.

    The plan was produced by the Navy’s Surface Warfare Division under the direction of Vice Adm. Joseph Sestak, deputy chief of naval operations, and sent to Congress on March 23. A copy was obtained by Defense News.



    In letters to Congress, Navy Secretary Gordon England described the plan as an “interim report” on ship levels through 2035. England said the Navy would produce a “final detailed report” this summer to “more thoroughly address build rates with regard to important issues such as fiscal constraints, industrial base and Global War on Terrorism challenges.”

    Navy officials declined to comment.

    But analysts questioned the plan on several levels. They argue the Navy’s plan fails to account sufficiently for amphibious lift and may be betting too much of its future on building new submarines and surface ships, which in recent years have skyrocketed in cost.

    Relying on Sea Swap

    Key to the smaller fleet is the Sea Swap concept, which may allow ships to stay longer on far-flung stations by rotating their crews to and from the United States. The Navy is still experimenting with the idea, but the ship plan reflects senior leaders’ high hopes that fewer ships may someday do the work of many.

    For example, today’s fleet has 35 Marine-carrying amphibious vessels, enough to fill 12 amphibious ready groups (ARGs) of three ships apiece. The plan foresees 17 to 24 amphibs in service in 2035. The big-fleet option calls for enough amphibs to maintain eight ARGs, while the small-fleet option sees eight assault ships and eight LPD-17 amphibious transport docks, suggesting the ARGs would have just two vessels apiece.

    The plans for the smaller amphib fleet suggest the Navy is counting on Sea Swap to reduce the need for hulls, despite Marine Corps concerns the concept will not work for expeditionary units, said Robert Work, a retired Marine officer and analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Washington.

    “This implies the amphibious fleet is a shadow of itself in the year 2035,” said Work, who recently completed a study of the Navy’s future shape. “The part of the fleet that delivers Marines is really changing.”

    Some of the amphibious fleet’s jobs will be taken over by three new kinds of ships that form the backbone of the Navy’s Sea Basing concept. They include:

    • Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future), or MPF(F) ships: Large noncombatant vessels similar to today’s maritime prepositioning ships, designed to support land operations from up to 100 miles away. The Navy plans 20 of these for its big fleet option by 2035, 14 for the smaller fleet.

    • High Speed Ship: A fast, sophisticated vessel with flight decks that could move quickly from U.S. bases to trouble spots around the world. Both fleet plans call for two of these ships by 2019.

    • High Speed Connector: A small vessel to shuttle troops and gear quickly to shore. Both plans call for three of these by 2019.

    The dearth of High Speed Ships and Connectors perplexes some observers, who think many more will be needed. But Work said one reason so few are indicated might be the Navy is not counting smaller landing craft or joint high-speed vessels. Those ships would be similar to converted catamaran ferries now in service.

    Even the smaller option for the amphibious fleet may be too expensive, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report, which proposed lower-cost options, including dropping Sea Base ships in favor of amphibs.

    Rise of the LCS

    By 2035, according to the plan, Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) will make up about one-quarter of the fleet. Navy leaders have said the service intends to buy about 60 of the small vessels, which are under development by Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. That number squares with the small fleet option, which calls for 63 LCSs, but is far smaller than the larger fleet, which envisions 82 LCSs. The number of LCSs accounts for about one-third of the extra ships in the 325-vessel option.

    Still, even a large increase in the number of LCSs is not necessarily reason for celebration by Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, the two companies that control the six shipyards that build most of the Navy’s ships. It is likely to require much less work to build the small LCS than past surface combatants.

    “In the past, maintaining a fleet of roughly 300 ships would have equated a certain amount of work for these yards,” said Ron O’Rourke, a naval analyst with the Congressional Research Service, who commented after Defense News provided him with a copy of the plan. “But under the Navy’s new plans, maintaining a fleet of about this size might now equate to a significantly lower amount” for the major shipyards.

    The 30-year plan does little about the rising cost and shrinking numbers of the submarine fleet.

    Instead, it suggests the continued production of Virginia (SSN 774)-class attack subs, once conceived as a cheaper alternative to the $2 billion Seawolf sub, but which now cost about $2.5 billion apiece. The plan calls for either 37 or 41 attack boats in 2035, down from 52 today. All but one would be Virginias, although it does mention a SSN-774i, or improved Virginia, coming on line at some point. But “unless current budget conditions change,” the Navy’s ability to afford that many “is a question,” O’Rourke said. “The continuation of 774/774i procurement many years into the future might not be very likely.”

    Both options envision four SSGN cruise missile submarines and 14 ballistic missile subs through 2035.

    But the four SSGNs will reach the end of their projected 42-year service life between 2023 and 2026. O’Rourke said this means either that the service intends to build new SSBNs or SSGNs, or that the plan contains “a mistake” in not noting the coming retirements. A third possibility, he said, is the extension of the life of the SSGNs.

    Another example of odd accounting concerns the Navy’s two remaining submarine tenders, both Cold War vintage. While the service rushed a decade ago to decommission most of its fleet of sub-support ships, the plan now foresees the two surviving tenders remaining in service well into the 2020s.

    “It’s a kind of conventional tinkering with an existing force structure,” said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. “When we consider how much the world has changed over the past 30 years, how likely is it that today’s fleet will be well suited to the world 30 years hence?”

    See the Navy’s 30-year force structure plan.
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