U.S. Navy Turns Attention To Ship, Sub Funds
The U.S. Navy plans to use multiyear contracts and other contracting strategies to refocus on a core mission set — building and operating the ships that move above and beneath the oceans.
The Navy’s fiscal 2012 budget request and planned budget priorities over the coming five years show the service’s strong interest in its surface and submarine fleets — the service plans to buy another 55 ships by fiscal 2016, five more than initially planned during that time.
Also, the service is requesting about $1.1 billion to jump-start the Ohio-class replacement program (SSBN(x)) for the nation’s ballistic-missile submarines, nearly twice the amount for the current fiscal year. The Navy also has about $5 billion to buy another two Virginia-class submarines in fiscal 2012 — and it plans to keep buying two more per year through the five-year span.
The service is using some of the Virginia-class “affordability initiatives” as a template for its Ohio-class replacement subs.
But the service still wants to improve its attack submarines, focusing research and development on reducing costs, operational evaluation testing, sonar development, combat control, electronic support systems and submarine multimission team trainer efforts. The $98 million fiscal 2012 request includes funding for bow array efforts, integrated low-pressure electrolyzer development, system level and subsystem improvements and Block IV reduced total ownership costs.
And the Navy says it needs to turn its attention on its surface fleet. “Surface combatants are the workhorses of our fleet and central to our traditional Navy core capabilities,” the service says in its budget documentation. “The Navy continues to be concerned about evolving capability gaps in our outer air battle in the blue water, particularly against improved ballistic missile capabilities emerging worldwide.”
That reasoning is central to the Navy’s commitment to build and upgrade its DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer fleet, which the service describes as “one of the Navy’s most capable ships against ballistic missile threats.”
The budget requests $2.1 billion for DDG-51 AEGIS destroyers and another $1.5 billion for Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense. In fiscal 2013, the Navy says, it intends to pursue a multiyear procurement for the destroyers, mirroring agreements it has for its Virginia-class subs and, more recently, its Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). Indeed, the Navy cites LCS contract savings as one of the reasons it can now afford more ships. The budget requests $2.2 billion for LCS, compared to $1.8 billion in fiscal 2011.
The budget allocates $1.9 billion for the LPD-17s, compared to $1.4 million in fiscal 2011.
Landing Helicopter Assault (LHA-7) replacement ships would receive $2 billion, compared to $950 million in fiscal 2011. The budget requests $416 million for the Joint High-Speed Vessel, compared to $210 million in fiscal 2011.
The Mobile Landing Platform would receive $426 million, versus $380 million in fiscal 2011. The budget also provides advancement procurement for both the CVN 79 and the refueling and complex overhaul of the USS Abraham Lincoln, CVN 72.
Photo: US Navy
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