Navy Chief Warns Of 2020s Shipbuilding Crunch
The U.S. chief of naval operations is warning the government to start heading off severe budget challenges for naval forces in the 2020s, when a surge of ships built in the 1980s will “age out” at the same time when the Navy will be trying to replace its strategic submarine and nuclear aircraft carrier fleets.
“The biggest issue is the decade of the ’20s,” Navy Adm. Gary Roughead told Washington-based defense reporters March 23. “The nation is looking at a challenge to shipbuilding that I believe we need to start thinking about now.”
The Navy already is under fire for its shipbuilding cost estimates and planning (Aerospace DAILY, March 14). Without mentioning the alleged budget gap, Roughead notes how just decommissioning a Nimitz-class carrier will cost “a couple of billion dollar[s].”
According to the Navy, the 10 Nimitz carriers are each designed for a roughly 50-year service life, with one midlife refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH). The USS Nimitz (CVN 68), which first deployed in 1975, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) and USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) have all completed RCOH, and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) has been undergoing its RCOH since 2009. The next generation of aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford class (CVN 78), was ordered in 2008 and is slated to be delivered in 2015 to replace the USS Enterprise (CVN 65). Around 2025, the Nimitz will have to be brought out of service and ostensibly replaced too.
Meanwhile, the Navy is designing a class of 12 SSBN(X) ballistic missile subs, which the sea service wants to buy to replace 14 Ohio-class strategic boats. But concerns emerged last year that the per-item price tag could swamp the Navy shipbuilding account. In February 2010 the Navy estimated the procurement cost of each SSBN(X) would be $6 billion-$7 billion in fiscal 2010 dollars — close to half of the Navy’s annual budget for procuring new ships, according to an October report by the Congressional Research Service. In September 2010, Pentagon leaders said the Navy was working to cut the average unit cost of Ohio replacements Nos. 2-12 to $5 billion each in 2010 dollars by trading off speed and other capabilities.
Wake-up call
Roughead’s warning is supposed to serve as a wake-up call, since the time frame is far off for military and legislative planning, and yet not that far away considering it takes roughly a decade to deliver capital ships.
Meanwhile, the chief says he is committed to putting an aircraft carrier “back in Mayport,” Fla. The move to shift the East Coast home base of one nuclear-powered carrier from Norfolk, Va., to Mayport has been a contentious topic in Congress, where lawmakers are interested in protecting or securing local jobs related to hosting a carrier, but Roughead deemed it militarily shrewd. The Navy sees international trade patterns and other activity shifting into the Southern Hemisphere, due to expansion of the Panama Canal and different trade routes coming up from Africa. “Strategic dispersion is a good thing,” he says.
Photo credit: U.S. Navy
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