WASHINGTON – Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday pondered the day the US Navy could buy a dozen or more ships each year. The Navy would receive funding levels, and the surface ship industrial base would have increased capacity, to support the construction of three destroyers a year, two or three frigates a year, an amphibious transport dock every two years, and more of supplies. ships.
But as he made clear in his comments this week, that day is not today.
The service continues to limit its spending request and long-term fleet development plans based on expected funding levels and the capacity of the current industrial base, leading to a fleet size that, according to Gilday, “to Nobody likes it.”
The The Navy’s fiscal year 2023 application calls for nine new ships and puts the fleet on track to shrink from 298 ships today to 280 in 2027. A The 30-year shipbuilding plan released on April 20 lays out three paths – and the path based on continued current funding levels only brings the Navy to a fleet of about 320 ships by 2045, compared to the 355 ships mandated by Congress.
“That’s not to say we’re not fighting for money for more capacity. But when we took a look at the top line that we had for the 23rd…our bumper sticker was ‘We’re not going to have a larger Navy than we can sustain,'” Gilday said April 28 at a virtual event co-organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the United States Naval Institute, both private organizations.
Certainly, the decommissioning is contributing to the decrease in the size of the fleet. Gilday said each ship was assessed for its ability to contribute to a high-level fight against China, and those that didn’t make the proposed cut to early decommissioning so the Navy can reinvest money in missiles and technology to make the fleet more deadliest in the next five years.
In the end, the Navy proposed decommissioning all of its Freedom-variant littoral combat ships, its eight- and nine-year-old expeditionary transfer docks, four of its amphibious landing ships, and one still-uncompleted Ticonderoga-class cruiser. its expected useful life.
“That will be a debate, and it should be a debate in the House regarding: if all those ships are retired, when could they be retired, what could be bought back in case the Department of Defense gets a higher top line, Should it be those ships, should it be another capability within the Department of Defense,” Gilday said.
“No one likes numbers on capacity,” he acknowledged in response to Congressional comments on his budget proposal, “but they know that if we change that model and make capacity king, we’re going to have to pay for those boats. somehow, and he is going to get out of the workforce, the ammunition.”
Gilday later said he is unhappy with the current capability levels of any ship class and the Navy’s inability to meet combatant commanders’ demands for those ships. In strategic joint force mission areas, such as long-range fires, “I’m happy to compete with the other services, and I expect them to win the best capabilities in terms of what we’re going to spend our money against in a budget-constrained environment.” But decisions about where to spend the savings are out of his hands.
decades later
Under the long-term shipbuilding plan, the Navy could afford to build a fleet of 318 to 322 ships in 2045, under two different scenarios limited to current funding levels. The Navy has remained at current funding levels because it is unclear whether the service will see real growth in its future budgets.
If the service could secure an additional $75 billion beyond the current five-year budget window — in other words, $75 billion in additional funding spread between 2028 and 2040 — it could increase the size of the fleet to 363 manned ships for 2045. Any of the scenarios would be complemented by dozens or even hundreds of unmanned platforms above and below the sea.
Still, that more aggressive spending plan isn’t getting the Navy where it wants to be.
The outgoing Trump administration in late 2020 offered a Battle Force 2045 plan that was not bound by fiscal realities, but outlined the fleet size and composition citing a significant body of analytical work as needed to deter or defeat China in a fight.
That plan he called for up to 420 manned ships, as well as more than 500 total ships when bareboat or minimally crewed ships are included. This plan would have reached the level of 355 ships required by Congress by 2035.
Even the Navy’s highest-cost alternative only reaches 355 ships in 2043 and peaks at 367, which is lower than the last major force structure analysis. The Navy notes in its FY23 long-range shipbuilding plan that this higher goal requires more funding, but is still self-limited based on expected industrial base capacity. That industry forecast itself is based on existing capacity and reasonable growth expectations.
Gilday previously said that National Defense Strategy 2022, of which a classified version has been presented to lawmakers but is not available to the public, would inform another force structure assessment that the Navy and Marine Corps will conduct this year. year, which will inform the FY24 budget request and the upcoming long-range shipbuilding plan.
Gilday has not speculated on the results of the force structure reassessment, but has said the the fleet needs to be bigger, though not at the expense of readiness.
“Although we cannot have a larger Navy than we can afford, capacity breeds capacity. You can only get that much capacity out of 296 ships, physically,” he told Defense News. “We need a bigger Navy, and you can’t just talk about capabilities without talking about size.”
In his remarks this week, he said achieving a larger fleet involves not only convincing the Pentagon and Congress to provide more money for more ships per year, but also securing higher levels of funding to create industrial stability and incentives for companies invest in their workforce and facilities. .
He noted that the submarine industrial base has had its share of challenges after the Navy stopped buying submarines in the 1990s and then had to go back to building one a year, then two a year later.
Over the next 20 years, submarine builders and suppliers “have a high degree of confidence that we will be on a cadence of two, if not three, attack ships a year plus an SSBN.” [nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine]Gilday said at the CSIS event. “So in terms of the industrial base and the investments that they have to make in manpower and also in infrastructure, they can count on stability and predictability like no other element in the entire Department of Defense. That’s where we have to go with the surface ships.”
“I’d like to get to a place where, and it’s definitely doable, where we have three destroyers in the budget a year. I would like to be in a place where we have two or three frigates a year,” added Gilday. “I think if we get more top line revenue — 1% to 2% top line revenue [growth] — we can have frigates at that kind of cadence. Supplies are shipped the same way. Potentially LPD in two-year centers, where we’re funding one every two years.”
The argument for higher, more stable funding levels resonates with many lawmakers, he said, but it hasn’t translated into an annual budget process that supports larger amounts of ship acquisitions.
“That kind of stability and predictability is good for the Navy, it’s good for the nation, it’s certainly good for the industrial base,” Gilday said.
Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when presenting stories from a boat. Megan is a student at the University of Maryland.
Reference-www.militarytimes.com