Thread: USN/USMC Articles

April 2006

Marines Struggle to Begin Rebuilding Force in ‘07

By Harold Kennedy

The Marine Corps is requesting a budget of $18.2 billion for 2007, but only a fraction of that will go to buy new equipment, said Lt. Gen. Emerson N. Gardner, deputy commandant for programs and resources. The Corps will need nearly $10 billion in additional funds from two separate 2006 supplemental appropriations—driving the total figure to almost $28 billion—to help the service begin to recover from the Iraq war and reorganize for an extended campaign against terrorism, Gardner told National Defense.

“We’re sustaining a force at war,” he said. “We’re recruiting, training and equipping Marines for the battlefield. That’s job one. We’ve got to have the supplementals to get that done.”

The Marines already have received one bridge supplemental appropriation of $4.1 billion, part of a larger measure that President Bush signed into law in December. A second supplemental request, sent to Capitol Hill in February, contains another $5.7 billion for the Corps.

Both of those supplements are necessary for the Marines to continue operating with the current level of troops and equipment in the coming year, Gardner asserted. The 2007 budget request, by itself, is not sufficient, he added.

Although the $18.2 billion is up slightly from the $17.5 billion the Corps sought in 2006, only $1.4 billion—less than 10 percent—will go to procure new equipment, Gardner explained. Of the total request, 62 percent will be earmarked for uniformed personnel, 22 percent for operations and maintenance, and 4 percent for military construction and family housing.

For this reason, the supplements are essential in paying for repairing and replacing lost or damaged equipment, Gardner said. The February request, for example, seeks $2.9 billion to procure new gear, including $431 million for a variety of radio systems for use in combat operations and $302 million to add armor to ground vehicles in Iraq.

Altogether, this process will cost about $12 billion, and it will take years, Marine Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee told reporters. The Corps has asked for $6 billion to get started in 2007.

“That’s about all we can handle during this fiscal year,” Hagee said.

Resetting has become critical because of the wear and tear that Marine equipment is getting in the war, Gardner said. “We’re using equipment at four and five times the rate we had planned on.”

For example, he said, the Corps had expected humvees to last 15 to 20 years. “In Iraq, they have a lifespan of more like four years. Right away, this means we have to buy more vehicles than we expected.” In 2007, the Marines plan to buy 851 humvees at a cost of $72 million.

Also in 2007, the Corps intends to purchase the first 15 expeditionary fighting vehicles at a cost of $188 million, Gardner said. The EFV is the successor to the assault amphibious vehicle, the 30-year-old platform that the Marines use to move troops and equipment from ship to shore while under hostile fire.

Designed primarily to operate close to the sea, the AAVs are being used heavily as armored personnel carriers during combat far inland in Iraq.

The Corps plans to acquire 1,013 EFVs over three decades, he said. Full-rate production, however, has been set back by budget cutbacks. Originally set for 2005, it now is scheduled for 2010.

In addition, the Marines plan use the December supplement to buy 392 seven-ton trucks, called medium tactical vehicle replacements, or MTVRs, at a cost of $87.5 million.

The MTVRs, made by the Oshkosh Truck Corp., are replacing the Corps’ aging fleet of M809 and M939 five-ton trucks. To date, the Marines have fielded 6,393 MTVRs. They have a requirement for another 726 at a cost of $163 million, said Capt. Jay Delarosa, a spokesman for Marine headquarters.

Currently, the Marines have deployed 900 MTVRs to Iraq and Kuwait, Landis said. By May, they plan to have equipped each of them with an MTVR armor system. The MAS, as it is called, transforms the trucks into virtual armored combat vehicles, he said. It uses a high-hard steel and metal composite to protect the crew compartment in 360 degrees, as well as overhead and underbody.

Another Corps priority is replenishing its fleet of aircraft, which also is taking a beating in the war, Hagee said. Thus far, he noted, the Corps has lost four Boeing CH-46E Sea Knight medium-lift assault helicopters in Iraq. In addition, in February, two Sikorsky CH-53 Super Stallion heavy-lift choppers crashed off the coast of the Horn of Africa, killing 10 crewmembers.

The Corps plans to replace those helicopters with Bell Boeing MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, Hagee said.

The rules governing the use of supplemental appropriations will permit the Marines to use some of those funds to buy four MV-22s to replace the lost CH-46s, he noted. Then, in 2007, the Marines intend to buy an additional 14 of the sophisticated but troubled aircraft at a cost of $1.5 billion.

The Osprey takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like a fixed-wing aircraft. It was chosen in 1995 to replace the CH-46, but it has been dogged by a series of crashes that have killed 30 men over the years.

Marines insist that the aircraft’s design problems have been fixed, and the Defense Department in September 2005 approved the MV-22 for full-rate production. The first MV-22 squadron was scheduled to stand up in March at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C.

“The next squadron is already in the works,” Gardner said. “From here on out, we plan to field two squadrons each year. We’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

In 2007, the Marines plan to acquire 18 AH-Z Super Cobra attack helicopters and UH-1Y Huey utility helicopters to replace Vietnam-era generations of the same two aircraft, which currently are flying close air support and transporting troops and supplies in Iraq.

The 18 new Cobras and Hueys—which will cost an estimated $447 million—are part of an upgrade program that is intended over time to recapitalize the entire fleet of 180 Cobras and 100 Hueys. The improvements, being implemented by Bell Helicopter Textron, use more than 80 percent of the same parts, including engines, gearboxes, rotor systems and cockpits, to simplify maintenance and reduce the fleet’s logistics footprint.

Also being heavily used in Iraq are the Corps’ KC-130J Super Hercules aerial refueling aircraft, Gardner said. The Marines are acquiring the KC-130Js, made by Lockheed Martin Corp., to replace older versions, some of which date back to 1962.

In Iraq, however, the KC-130Js are busier than ever, Gardner said. “Usually, they fly 40 hours a month,” he noted. “In Iraq, they’re doing 100 hours a month.”

In 2007, the Marines plan to buy four of the KC-130Js at an estimated cost of $299 million.

The reason for the change, officials said, is not only are the older aircraft wearing out, but also the KC-130J is more capable. It can offload 8,455 gallons of fuel, compared to 5,588 gallons for the KC-130F.

The Marines also are taking steps to acquire lighter, more easily transportable artillery, Gardner said. “We’re replacing all of our [M198 155 mm medium towed howitzers],” he said.

“That’s a big part of our concept. We want to be more expeditionary—to move our ground forces more quickly and easily.”

In 2007, the Corps plans to buy 34 lightweight 155 mm howitzers at an estimated cost of $94 million. The LW 155, made by BAE Systems, weighs 9,000 pounds, compared to 16,000 for the quarter-century old M198, making it transportable by MV-22, Gardner said.

Also in 2007, the Marines intend to buy six copies of the Lockheed Martin high mobility artillery rocket system at an estimated cost of $58 million, Gardner said. The HIMARS is a mobile, multiple rocket-launching system that is carried on a five-ton, six-by-six wheeled truck, and it can fit onto a C-130. It can carry a single six-pack of multiple launch rocket systems or one Army tactical missile system.

The Marines have been developing the HIMARS jointly with the Army since 2000. The Leathernecks plan to introduce the system to three artillery batteries in late 2007.

A high priority for the Marines in 2007 will be to provide better body armor for their ground troops, said Capt. Jeff Landis, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Systems Command, at Quantico, Va. “We will field a redesigned outer tactical vest shell that allows Marines to carry their assault load on the vest and incorporates state-of-the-art load-carriage techniques to better distribute weight over the torso,” he explained.

The new OTV will have an improved vest-closure design, a quick-release capability, increased coverage in the lower back, more comfortable integration of small-arms protective inserts and easier routing for radio cables, Landis said.

At the same time, he said, the Corps will continue to field the QuadGard appendage-protection system, which is worn with the OTVs and extends coverage to arms and legs.

In a longer-range project, meanwhile, the Marines’ individual combat equipment program office is continuing development of a next-generation replacement for the Corps’ current lightweight helmet, he added. The new version will integrate full-head, eye and ear protection and improved communications capability.

A major priority for the service in 2007, Gardner said, is to continue building the Marine Corps Special Operations Command, which was established formally in February at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The 2,600 Marines who ultimately will be transferred to MARSOC will fall under the control of SOCOM, but that doesn’t mean the Corps is going to shrink, Hagee said. He plans to keep the number of Marines at its current level, just over 179,000. “I think we’re in a long war, and we’re going to stay at that number,” he said.

The Marine’s regular 2007 budget, however, supports only 175,000 troops, the Corps’ pre-9/11 size. The additional 4,000 are to be funded by supplemental appropriations, as they have been for the past couple of years, Hagee said.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, however, are growing weary of supplemental requests. Relying on such requests “is not responsible budgeting,” Michigan’s Sen. Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a hearing in February.

“It understates the true cost of our defense program because it does not fully recognize or pay for the cost of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Levin said. Those costs should be included the regular budget, he said. “Honest budgeting requires no less.”

For the immediate future, however, the Marines have no alternative but to continue relying upon supplements, Gardner said. “We will need them on this scale for at least two more years,” he said.

April 2006

Plans to Expand Fleet May Be Unrealistic

By Grace Jean

Amidst assurances by the Navy leadership that the latest shipbuilding blueprint is on a safe course, several analysts are sounding alarms. Unless the Navy begins to aggressively cut costs from its shipbuilding programs and pump much more money into these accounts, the plan could fail, these experts warn.

To increase its current fleet from 281 ships to 313 ships, the Navy plans to procure between seven to 14 new vessels during each of the next five years. The list includes the purchase of one CVN-21—a new aircraft carrier, five Virginia-class attack submarines, 23 littoral combat ships, and five DD(X) destroyers.

“It’s going to take on average about $13.5 billion of current money … to make the plan work. I don’t consider that out of reach, although it is a goal,” Adm. Michael Mullen, the chief of naval operations, told reporters. He further clarified that it will take $13.5 billion annually “at least through 2020” to meet the service’s shipbuilding goals.

However, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the service will need much more—$18.3 billion in 2006 dollars—to cover its shipbuilding costs.

In the president’s 2007 budget, the Navy has requested a shipbuilding budget of $10.57 billion.

“This budget is optimistic and demands cost control; it demands constant attention; it demands willingness to give up things that would be nice to have instead of absolutely required to have, and it also depends on a very healthy and steady shipbuilding budget from Congress with no encroachments,” said Robert Work, senior naval analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He said he applauds the service’s efforts to stabilize the shipbuilding budget, but worries that the cost is a “fiscal bridge too far.” He estimated the account is at least $2 billion to $3 billion short per year.

Proof that the Navy is underestimating its shipbuilding costs is the recent “FY ’07 Unfunded Program Requirements List,” which Mullen sent to Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, who makes it an annual ritual to seek from each service a wish list of items they need, but did not get included in the budget request.

The Navy’s list—which totals $4.5 billion—includes $2.3 billion for shipbuilding programs.

In 2000 to 2005, the annual funding for construction of new ships averaged about $10.2 billion, wrote Ronald O’Rourke in a Congressional Research Service report. The Navy’s 313-ship plan “appears to depend in large part on the Navy’s ability to substantially increase annual funding for construction of new ships and to constrain ship procurement costs,” he wrote.

Legislators on Capitol Hill have expressed concern over the affordability of the 313-ship plan.

“Even by conservative estimates, the plan will require a sizeable increase in the shipbuilding account compared to historic funding levels. And we all know that without an increase in the top line, this increase must come at the expense of something else,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

When reporters asked about the need to increase the Navy’s budget in order to support the long-term shipbuilding plan, Mullen responded, “I don’t anticipate a lot more money coming into the top line.” The budget request for fiscal year 2007 is $127 billion, which includes $18 billion for the Marine Corps.

Mullen said he expects the shipbuilding account to grow to $13.5 billion in the next few years—even as early as 2008—and that the money would come from within the Navy.

“But I won’t be able to pay for it out of readiness, and I won’t be able to pay for it out of the people side,” he told reporters.

Rear Adm. Stan Bozin, director of the Navy’s budget office, told reporters that the service “did not reduce manpower to create funding for other areas.” The Navy, he said, is focused on having the right amount of manpower for the force, and if the personnel reduction generated savings, then that would be utilized “across the board.”

“We need to keep our manpower costs down; we need to keep our [operation and maintenance] costs down, so we have the money for the investment capability that we’ve outlined,” he added.

Further hampering the affordability issue is that the price tag for shipbuilding, in general, has been increasing.

Up through the last budget, and excluding aircraft carriers, the average cost of a ship has been $1.4 billion, says Work. Based on that average, a budget of $13.4 billion would allow the Navy to purchase 9.6 ships each year—a number that would keep the fleet numbers on course for the service’s goal of 313 total vessels.

The 2007 budget supports acquisition of seven new ships. Mullen said that he wants ship procurement to rise to nine to 10 ships, and, in some years, above that level.

But with several advanced technology ships, such as the DD(X) and the Virginia-class submarines, pushing into several billions of dollars each, the number of new ships the force can afford from year to year decreases and puts the service in danger of having a higher attrition rate than it can replace, said Work.

“The dirty little secret in the Navy’s 313-ship plan is, every single one of those ships has to remain in service for the full years of expected service life … That hasn’t happened in decades,” he said. For example, the Navy’s first five Ticonderoga-class cruisers left service before they reached the end of their 35-year service life. In addition, the Navy also is getting rid of its submarines much sooner than 33 years, he said.

Even if those ships are retained for the full expected service life, the force also must replace them one for one, otherwise the whole plan starts heading far south, said Work.

Defense watchdogs have expressed concern over that very issue in recent years. The rate of Navy shipbuilding since the early 1990s has been below the so-called steady-state replacement rate for a fleet of about 300 ships, wrote O’Rourke in his report.

Of particular concern is the submarine fleet.

“We have spent so many years not buying many submarines that we now need to go to two per year by fiscal year ‘12 to avoid going below 40 submarines,” said O’Rourke.

The Navy’s 30-year plan states a goal of a fleet of 48 submarines with the intention of procuring two submarines per year beginning in 2012. But O’Rourke pointed out that even if the service were to begin procuring two submarines a year in 2007, there would be an interval of eight years during which the number of attack submarines would fall below a total of 48.

To minimize that gap, critics want the service to begin procuring the Virginia-class submarines sooner, but the Navy’s chief officer has indicated an alternate plan.

“Will I support additional money in ’07 to support a submarine in ’09? The answer to that is no,” Mullen told reporters. “It’s not part of the plan. I’ve said fiscal year ’12 for a very specific reason. It’s what I think we can do.”

The Virginia-class submarine costs $2.4 billion, said Robert A. Hamilton, spokesman for General Dynamics Electric Boat.

In order to afford building two of those submarines per year, Mullen said each boat must cost $2 billion apiece. He pointed out that procuring two submarines in 2009 would impact “pretty severely” on the budget.

According to the shipbuilder, however, the cost will not come down until the Navy ramps up production. “One of the problems is you see fewer and fewer subs being built. That alone drives the cost up. The only way down to $2 billion is through building two per year,” Hamilton said.

Warnings about the force structure problem for the underwater fleet began surfacing in 1995, and they are harbingers of what could happen to the Navy’s surface combatants, said O’Rourke.

“As a result of past decisions, we might now be starting on the same path with cruisers and destroyers,” said O’Rourke.

The Navy is planning for a fleet of 88 cruisers and destroyers. But based upon the 30-year shipbuilding plan, surface combatant numbers will fall below that level and will never become replenished, asserted O’Rourke.

During the first 17 years of the plan, O’Rourke said the Navy would build 1.5 cruisers or destroyers a year. After that, the service plans to ratchet up to building two per year. But, explained O’Rourke, those numbers don’t add up to a steady-state level of 2.5 ships a year; they only average one and three-quarter ships a year.

“In consequence, the Navy could fall below 88 and will never get back to 88,” he said.

The Defense Department, notably, did not endorse the Navy’s 313-ship plan in the quadrennial defense review. Consequently, there will be continued ambiguity in the future size and structure of the fleet as the service pursues its shipbuilding goals, said O’Rourke.

“It has the potential to extend rather than end the uncertainty that Congress and industry have been contending with in trying to understand where the Navy is going,” he said.

The lack of a Pentagon endorsement could mean two things: the comptroller’s office may believe that the plan is not affordable and does not want to commit to a pattern of spending, or Defense Department policy officials might disagree with the number of ships.

In various public speeches and media forums, Navy officials exuded confidence in the long-term shipbuilding plan.

“Clearly, you got to have a plan. You got to have a place to start from. I’m committed to this shipbuilding plan,” Mullen told National Defense.