Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans:
Background and Issues for Congress
Ronald O'Rourke
Specialist in Naval Affairs
August 1, 2014
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
RL32665
Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Summary
The Navy’s proposed FY2015 budget requests funding for the procurement of seven new battle
force ships (i.e., ships that count against the Navy’s goal for achieving and maintaining a fleet of
306 ships). The seven ships include two Virginia-class attack submarines, two DDG-51 class
Aegis destroyers, and three Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs). The Navy’s proposed FY2015-
FY2019 five-year shipbuilding plan includes a total of 44 ships, compared to a total of 41 ships in
the FY2014-FY2018 five-year shipbuilding plan.
The planned size of the Navy, the rate of Navy ship procurement, and the prospective
affordability of the Navy’s shipbuilding plans have been matters of concern for the congressional
defense committees for the past several years. The Navy’s FY2015 30-year (FY2014-FY2044)
shipbuilding plan, like many previous Navy 30-year shipbuilding plans, does not include enough
ships to fully support all elements of the Navy’s 306-ship goal over the entire 30-year period. In
particular, the Navy projects that the fleet would experience a shortfall in amphibious ships from
FY2015 through FY2017, a shortfall in small surface combatants from FY2015 through FY2027,
and a shortfall in attack submarines from FY2025 through FY2034.
The Navy delivered its narrative report on the FY2015 30-year shipbuilding plan to CRS on July
3, 2014. The Navy estimates in the report that the plan would cost an average of about $16.7
billion per year in constant FY2014 dollars to implement. The Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) is now preparing its own estimate of the cost to implement the plan; this estimate will be
made available later this year. CBO’s estimates of the cost to implement past annual versions of
the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan have been higher than the Navy’s estimates. Some of the
difference between CBO’s estimate and the Navy’s estimate, particularly in the latter years of the
plan, has been due to a difference between CBO and the Navy in how to treat inflation in Navy
shipbuilding.
Potential issues for Congress in reviewing the Navy’s proposed FY2015 shipbuilding budget, its
proposed FY2015-FY2019 five-year shipbuilding plan, and its FY2015 30-year (FY2015-
FY2044) shipbuilding plan include the following:
• the Navy’s proposal to defer until FY2016 a decision on whether to proceed with
the mid-life nuclear refueling overhaul of the aircraft carrier George Washington
(CVN-73);
• the Navy’s proposal to put 11 of its 22 Aegis cruisers into some form of reduced
operating status starting in FY2015, and then return them to service years from
now;
• the Navy’s proposal to retire all 10 of its remaining Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7)
class frigates in FY2015;
• the Navy’s proposal to modify the rules for what ships to include in the count of
the number of battle force ships in the Navy;
• the potential impact on the size of the Navy of limiting DOD spending in
FY2013-FY2021 to the levels set forth in the Budget Control Act of 2011, as
amended;
• the appropriate future size and structure of the Navy in light of budgetary and
strategic considerations; and
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
• the affordability of the 30-year shipbuilding plan.
Funding levels and legislative activity on individual Navy shipbuilding programs are tracked in
detail in other CRS reports.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Background ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Navy’s Ship Force Structure Goal ............................................................................................. 1
January 2013 Goal for Fleet of 306 Ships ........................................................................... 1
306-Ship Goal Reflects 2012 Strategic Guidance and Projected DOD Spending
Shown in FY2013 and FY2014 Budget Submissions ...................................................... 1
Goal for Fleet of 306 Ships Compared to Earlier Goals ..................................................... 1
Navy’s Five-Year and 30-Year Shipbuilding Plans ................................................................... 3
Five-Year (FY2015-FY2019) Shipbuilding Plan ................................................................ 3
30-Year (FY2015-FY2044) Shipbuilding Plan ................................................................... 5
Navy’s Projected Force Levels Under 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan ............................................ 6
Comparison of First 10 Years of 30-Year Plans ......................................................................... 9
Oversight Issues for Congress for FY2015 .................................................................................... 13
Mid-Life Refueling Overhaul of Aircraft Carrier George Washington (CVN-73) .................. 13
Proposal to Put 11 Cruisers into Reduced Operating Status .................................................... 15
Proposal to Retire All 10 Remaining FFG-7 Frigates in FY2015 ........................................... 17
Proposal to Modify What Ships Are Included in the Count of Battle Force Ships ................. 17
Potential Impact on Size of Navy of Limiting DOD Spending to BCA Caps Through
FY2021 ................................................................................................................................. 18
Appropriate Future Size and Structure of Navy in Light of Strategic and Budgetary
Changes ................................................................................................................................ 22
Affordability of 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan ............................................................................ 31
Estimated Ship Procurement Costs ................................................................................... 31
Future Shipbuilding Funding Levels ................................................................................. 33
Legislative Activity for FY2015 .................................................................................................... 34
FY2015 Funding Request ........................................................................................................ 34
CRS Reports Tracking Legislation on Specific Navy Shipbuilding Programs ....................... 35
FY2015 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4435/S. 2410) ........................................ 35
House (Committee Report) ............................................................................................... 35
House (Floor Action) ......................................................................................................... 40
Senate ................................................................................................................................ 40
FY2015 DOD Appropriations Act (H.R. 4870) ....................................................................... 45
House ................................................................................................................................. 45
Senate ................................................................................................................................ 46
Tables
Table 1. Current 306 Ship Force Structure Goal Compared to Earlier Goals .................................. 2
Table 2. Navy FY2014 Five-Year (FY2015-FY2019) Shipbuilding Plan ....................................... 3
Table 3. Navy FY2015 30-Year (FY2015-FY2044) Shipbuilding Plan .......................................... 5
Table 4. Projected Force Levels Resulting from FY2015 30-Year (FY2015-FY2044)
Shipbuilding Plan ......................................................................................................................... 7
Table 5. Ship Procurement Quantities in First 10 Years of 30-Year Shipbuilding Plans ............... 10
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Table 6. Projected Navy Force Sizes in First 10 years of 30-Year Shipbuilding Plans ................. 11
Table 7. Recent Study Group Proposals for Navy Ship Force Structure ....................................... 26
Table 8. Navy and CBO Estimates of Cost of FY2014 and FY2015 30-Year Shipbuilding
Plans ........................................................................................................................................... 32
Table B-1. Comparison of Navy’s 306-ship goal, Navy Plan from 1993 BUR, and Navy
Plan from 2010 QDR Review Panel ........................................................................................... 54
Table D-1. Total Number of Ships in the Navy Since FY1948 ..................................................... 59
Table D-2. Battle Force Ships Procured or Requested/Programmed, FY1982-FY2019 ............... 60
Appendixes
Appendix A. Comparing Past Ship Force Levels to Current or Potential Future Ship Force
Levels.......................................................................................................................................... 50
Appendix B. Independent Panel Assessment of 2010 QDR .......................................................... 52
Appendix C. U.S. Strategy and the Size and Structure of U.S. Naval Forces ............................... 56
Appendix D. Size of the Navy and Navy Shipbuilding Rate ......................................................... 58
Contacts
Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 60
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Introduction
This report provides background information and presents potential issues for Congress
concerning the Navy’s ship force-structure goals and shipbuilding plans. The planned size of the
Navy, the rate of Navy ship procurement, and the prospective affordability of the Navy’s
shipbuilding plans have been matters of concern for the congressional defense committees for the
past several years. Decisions that Congress makes on Navy shipbuilding programs can
substantially affect Navy capabilities and funding requirements, and the U.S. shipbuilding
industrial base.
Background
Navy’s Ship Force Structure Goal
January 2013 Goal for Fleet of 306 Ships
On January 31, 2013, in response to Section 1015 of the FY2013 National Defense Authorization
Act (H.R. 4310/P.L. 112-239 of January 2, 2013), the Navy submitted to Congress a report
presenting a goal for achieving and maintaining a fleet of 306 ships, consisting of certain types
and quantities of ships.1 The goal for a 306-ship fleet is the result of a force structure assessment
(FSA) that the Navy completed in 2012.
306-Ship Goal Reflects 2012 Strategic Guidance and Projected DOD Spending
Shown in FY2013 and FY2014 Budget Submissions
The 2012 FSA and the resulting 306-ship plan reflect the defense strategic guidance document
that the Administration presented in January 20122 and the associated projected levels of
Department of Defense (DOD) spending shown in the FY2013 and FY2014 budget submissions.
DOD officials have stated that if planned levels of DOD spending are reduced below what is
shown in these budget submissions, the defense strategy set forth in the January 2012 strategic
guidance document might need to be changed. Such a change, Navy officials have indicated,
could lead to the replacement of the 306-ship plan of January 2013 with a new plan.
Goal for Fleet of 306 Ships Compared to Earlier Goals
Table 1 compares the 306-ship goal to earlier Navy ship force structure plans.
1 Department of the Navy, Report to Congress [on] Navy Combatant Vessel Force Structure Requirement, January
2013, 3 pp. The cover letters for the report were dated January 31, 2013.
2 For more on this document, see CRS Report R42146, Assessing the January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance
(DSG): In Brief, by Catherine Dale and Pat Towell.
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Table 1. Current 306 Ship Force Structure Goal Compared to Earlier Goals
Changes
Early-2005
2002-
to
Navy plan
2004
2001
Revised
February
February
for fleet of
Navy QDR
306-
~310-
313-ship
2006 313-
2006
260-325
plan
plan
ship
316 ship
plan of
ship plan
Navy
ships
for
for
plan of
plan of
Septem-
announced
plan for
375-
310-
January
March
ber
through
313-ship
260-
325-
ship
ship
Ship type
2013
2012
2011
mid-2011
fleet
ships ships Navya Navy
Ballistic missile submarines
12b
12-14b 12b 12b 14
14
14
14
14
(SSBNs)
Cruise missile submarines
0c
0-4c
4c
0c 4
4
4
4
2
or
(SSGNs)
4d
Attack submarines (SSNs)
48
~48 48 48 48 37
41
55
55
Aircraft carriers
11e
11e 11e 11e 11f 10
11
12
12
Cruisers and destroyers
88
~90 94 94g 88
67
92
104
116
Frigates
0
0 0 0 0
0
0
0
Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs)
52
~55 55 55 55 63
82
56
0
Amphibious ships
33
~32 33 33h 31
17
24
37
36
MPF(F) shipsi
0j
0j
0j
0j 12i 14i 20i
0i
0i
Combat logistics (resupply) ships
29
~29 30 30 30 24
26
42
34
Dedicated mine warfare ships
0
0 0 0 0
0
0
26k 16
Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSVs)
10l
10l 10l 21l 3
0
0
0
0
Otherm
23
~23 16 24n 17
10
11
25
25
Total battle force ships
306
~310-
313
328
313
260
325
375
310
316
or
312
Sources: Table prepared by CRS based on U.S. Navy data.
Note: QDR is Quadrennial Defense Review. The “~” symbol means approximately and signals that the number
in question may be refined as a result of the Naval Force Structure Assessment currently in progress.
a. Initial composition. Composition was subsequently modified.
b. The Navy plans to replace the 14 current Ohio-class SSBNs with a new class of 12 next-generation SSBNs.
For further discussion, see CRS Report R41129, Navy Ohio Replacement (SSBN[X]) Ballistic Missile Submarine
Program: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
c. Although the Navy plans to continue operating its four SSGNs until they reach retirement age in the late
2020s, the Navy does not plan to replace these ships when they retire. This situation can be expressed in a
table like this one with either a 4 or a zero.
d. The report on the 2001 QDR did not mention a specific figure for SSGNs. The Administration’s proposed
FY2001 DOD budget requested funding to support the conversion of two available Trident SSBNs into
SSGNs, and the retirement of two other Trident SSBNs. Congress, in marking up this request, supported a
plan to convert all four available SSBNs into SSGNs.
e. With congressional approval, the goal has been temporarily be reduced to 10 carriers for the period
between the retirement of the carrier Enterprise (CVN-65) in December 2012 and entry into service of the
carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), currently scheduled for September 2015.
f.
For a time, the Navy characterized the goal as 11 carriers in the nearer term, and eventually 12 carriers.
g. The 94-ship goal was announced by the Navy in an April 2011 report to Congress on naval force structure
and missile defense.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
h. The Navy acknowledged that meeting a requirement for being able to lift the assault echelons of 2.0 Marine
Expeditionary Brigades (MEBs) would require a minimum of 33 amphibious ships rather than the 31 ships
shown in the February 2006 plan. For further discussion, see CRS Report RL34476, Navy LPD-17 Amphibious
Ship Procurement: Background, Issues, and Options for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
i.
Today’s Maritime Prepositioning Force (MPF) ships are intended primarily to support Marine Corps
operations ashore, rather than Navy combat operations, and thus are not counted as Navy battle force
ships. The planned MPF (Future) ships, however, would have contributed to Navy combat capabilities (for
example, by supporting Navy aircraft operations). For this reason, the ships in the planned MPF(F) squadron
were counted by the Navy as battle force ships. The planned MPF(F) squadron was subsequently
restructured into a different set of initiatives for enhancing the existing MPF squadrons; the Navy no longer
plans to acquire an MPF(F) squadron.
j.
The Navy no longer plans to acquire an MPF(F) squadron. The Navy, however, has procured or plans to
procure some of the ships that were previously planned for the squadron—specifical y, TAKE-1 class cargo
ships, and Mobile Landing Platform (MLP)/Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) ships. These ships are
included in the total shown for “Other” ships.
k. The figure of 26 dedicated mine warfare ships included 10 ships maintained in a reduced mobilization status
cal ed Mobilization Category B. Ships in this status are not readily deployable and thus do not count as
battle force ships. The 375-ship proposal thus implied transferring these 10 ships to a higher readiness
status.
l.
Totals shown include 5 ships transferred from the Army to the Navy and operated by the Navy primarily
for the performance of Army missions.
m. This category includes, among other things, command ships and support ships.
n. The increase in this category from 17 ships under the February 2006 313-ship plan to 24 ships under the
apparent 328-ship goal included the addition of one TAGOS ocean surveillance ship and the transfer into
this category of six ships—three modified TAKE-1 class cargo ships, and three Mobile Landing Platform
(MLP) ships—that were previously intended for the planned (but now canceled) MPF(F) squadron.
Navy’s Five-Year and 30-Year Shipbuilding Plans
Five-Year (FY2015-FY2019) Shipbuilding Plan
Table 2 shows the Navy’s FY2015 five-year (FY2015-FY2019) shipbuilding plan.
Table 2. Navy FY2014 Five-Year (FY2015-FY2019) Shipbuilding Plan
(Battle force ships—i.e., ships that count against 306-ship goal)
Ship type
FY15
FY16
FY17
FY18
FY19
Total
Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft carrier
1
1
Virginia (SSN-774) class attack submarine
2
2
2
2
2
10
Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class destroyer
2
2
2
2
2
10
Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)
3
3
3
3
2
14
LHA(R) amphibious assault ship
1
1
Fleet tug (TATF)
2
1
1
4
Mobile Landing Platform (MLP)/Afloat Forward
1 1
Staging Base (AFSB)
TAO(X) oiler
1
1
1
3
TOTAL
7
8
11
10
8
44
Source: FY2015 Navy budget submission.
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Notes: The MLP/AFSB is a variant of the MLP with additional features permitting it to serve in the role of an
AFSB. The Navy proposes to fund the TATFs and TAO(X)s through the National Defense Sealift Fund (NDSF)
and the other ships through the Navy’s shipbuilding account, known formally as the Shipbuilding and Conversion,
Navy (SCN) appropriation account.
Observations that can be made about the Navy’s proposed FY2015 five-year (FY2015-FY2019)
shipbuilding plan include the following:
• Total of 44 ships. The plan includes a total of 44 ships, compared to a total of 41
ships in the FY2014-FY2018 five-year shipbuilding plan.
• Average of 8.8 ships per year. The plan includes an average of 8.8 battle force
ships per year. The steady-state replacement rate for a fleet of 306 ships with an
average service life of 35 years is about 8.7 ships per year. In light of how the
average shipbuilding rate since FY1993 has been substantially below 8.7 ships
per year (see Appendix D), shipbuilding supporters for some time have wanted
to increase the shipbuilding rate to a steady rate of 10 or more battle force ships
per year.
• DDG-51 destroyers and Virginia-class submarines being procured under
MYP arrangements. The 10 DDG-51 destroyers to be procured in FY2013-
FY2017 and the 10 Virginia-class attack submarines to be procured in FY2014-
FY2018 are being procured under multiyear procurement (MYP) contracts.3
• Navy is requesting three rather than four LCSs for FY2015. LCSs are being
procured under a pair of block buy contracts covering the years FY2010-FY2015.
These two contracts call for a total of four LCSs in FY2015. The Navy, however,
is requesting funding for the procurement of three LCSs in FY2015. If three
LCSs are funded in FY2015, one of the two LCS block buy contracts would not
be fully implemented in its final year.
• Start of LX(R) amphibious ship procurement deferred to FY2020. The
FY2015-FY2019 five-year shipbuilding plan defers the procurement of the first
LX(R) amphibious ship to FY2020, compared to FY2019 in the FY2014-FY2018
plan, FY2018 in the FY2013-FY2017 plan, and FY2017 in the FY2012-FY2016
plan. In each of these five-year plans, the lead LX(R) ship was scheduled one
year beyond the end of the five-year period.
• MLP/AFSB ship added to FY2017. The FY2015-FY2019 five-year
shipbuilding plan adds an MLP/AFSB (Mobile Landing Platform/Afloat Forward
Staging Base) ship in FY2017. This ship, not previously planned, would likely be
built by General Dynamics/National Steel and Shipbuilding Company
(GD/NASSCO), the builder of prior MLP/AFSB ships. In addition to providing a
platform that would help the Navy meet certain operational needs, adding this
ship to the shipbuilding plan might help the Navy ensure strong competition for
two other Navy ship programs—the TAO(X) oiler program, the first ship of
which is to be procured in FY2016, and the LX(R) amphibious ship program, the
first ship of which is to be procured in FY2020.4
3 For more on MYP contracting, see CRS Report R41909, Multiyear Procurement (MYP) and Block Buy Contracting
in Defense Acquisition: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke and Moshe Schwartz.
4 NASSCO could be a bidder for either or both of the TAO(X) and LX(R) programs. From a competition perspective,
the added FY2017 MLP/AFSB ship might be viewed as a Navy signal to NASSCO that the Navy would not necessarily
(continued...)
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
30-Year (FY2015-FY2044) Shipbuilding Plan
Table 3 shows the Navy’s FY2015 30-year (FY2015-FY2044) shipbuilding plan.
Table 3. Navy FY2015 30-Year (FY2015-FY2044) Shipbuilding Plan
FY CVN LSC SSC SSN
SSBN
AWS
CLF
Supt Total
15
2 3 2
7
16
2 3 2
1
8
17
2 3 2
1
3 11
18
1 2 3 2
1
1 10
19
2 2 2
1
1 8
20
2 3 2
1
1
2 11
21
2 3 1
1
1
8
22
2 3 2
1
1
2 11
23
1 2 3 1
1
3 11
24
2 3 2
1
2
1
2 13
25
2 3 1
1
1 8
26
2 2
1
1
1
7
27
2 1
1
1
5
28
1 2 2
1
2
1
1 10
29
2 1
1
1
1
1 7
30
2 1 2
1
1
1
2 10
31
2 1
1
1
1
2 8
32
2 1 2
1
2
1
3 12
33
1 2 1
1
1
1
2 9
34
2 1 2
1
1
2 9
35
2 1 1
1
5
36
2 2
1
5
37
2 4 1
7
38
1 3 4 2
10
39
3 4 1
8
40
3 4 2
2
11
41
3 4 1
8
42
3 4 2
1
10
43
1 2 4 1
1
9
44
2 2 2
2
8
Source: FY2015 30-year (FY2015-FY2044) shipbuilding plan.
(...continued)
award NASSCO the TAO(X) program merely to provide a source work for NASSCO until the LX(R) competition
(because NASSCO would likely receive the FY2017 MLP/AFSB), and consequently that NASSCO would need to
submit a competitive bid for the TAO(X) program. By the same token, the added FY2017 MLP/AFSB ship might be
viewed as a Navy signal to potential bidders for the LX(R) program other than NASSCO that if NASSCO were not
awarded the TAO(X) program, NASSCO would still have enough work to be a strong bidder for the LX(R) program
(again because NASSCO would likely receive the FY2017 MLP/AFSB), and consequently that LX(R) bidders other
than NASSCO would face strong competition from NASSCO. Another potential implication from this perspective is
that if NASSCO wins the TAO(X) competition, the Navy, other things held equal, might see less reason to retain the
FY2017 MLP/AFSB in the shipbuilding plan.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Key: FY = Fiscal Year; CVN = aircraft carriers; LSC = surface combatants (i.e., cruisers and destroyers); SSC
= small surface combatants (i.e., Littoral Combat Ships [LCSs]); SSN = attack submarines; SSGN = cruise
missile submarines; SSBN = ballistic missile submarines; AWS = amphibious warfare ships; CLF = combat
logistics force (i.e., resupply) ships; Supt = support ships.
In devising a 30-year shipbuilding plan to move the Navy toward its ship force-structure goal, key
assumptions and planning factors include but are not limited to the following:
• ship service lives;
• estimated ship procurement costs;
• projected shipbuilding funding levels; and
• industrial-base considerations.
Navy’s Projected Force Levels Under 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan
Table 4 shows the Navy’s projection of ship force levels for FY2015-FY2044 that would result
from implementing the FY2015 30-year (FY2015-FY2044) shipbuilding plan shown in Table 3.
As part of its FY2015 budget submission, the Navy is proposing to modify the rules for what
ships to include in the count of the number of battle force ships in the Navy. In its FY2015 budget
submission, the Navy has presented figures for projected Navy ship force levels using both the
existing rules and the proposed modified rules. Table 4 and Table 6 show figures using both the
existing rules and the proposed modified rules.
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Table 4. Projected Force Levels Resulting from FY2015 30-Year (FY2015-FY2044)
Shipbuilding Plan
Where two figures are shown, the first is the figure using existing rules for counting battle force ships,
and the second is the figure using the Navy’s proposed modified rules for counting battle force ships.
CVN
LSC
SSC
SSN
SSGN
SSBN
AWS
CLF
Supt
Total
306 ship plan
11
88
52
48
0
12
33
29
33
306
FY15
10 85
19/26
54
4
14
30
29
29/32
274/284
FY16
11 88
23/30
53
4
14
31
29
27/30
280/290
FY17
11 90
27/34
50
4
14
32
29
29/32
286/296
FY18
11 91
31/38
52
4
14
33
29
29/32
295/304
FY19
11 93
35/40
51
4
14
33
29
31/34
301/309
FY20
11 95
36/37
49
4
14
33
29
33/36
304/308
FY21
11 96
36/33
49
4
14
33
29
32/35 304
FY22
11 97
38/36
48
4
14
33
29
32/35
306/307
FY23
12 98 39
49
4
14
33
29
33/36
311/314
FY24
12 98
41/40
48
4
14
34
29
33/36
313/315
FY25
11 98 43
47
4
14
34
29
34/37
314/317
FY26
11 97 46
45
2
14
36
29
34/37
314/317
FY27
11 99 49
44
1
13
35
29
34/37
315/318
FY28
11 100 52
41
0
13
36
29
34/37
316/319
FY29
11 98 52
41
0
12
35
29
34/37
312/315
FY30
11 95 52
41
0
11
35
29
34/37
308/311
FY31
11 91 52
43
0
11
34
29
34/36
305/307
FY32
11 89 52
43
0
10
34
29
35/37
303/305
FY33
11 88 52
45
0
10
35
29
35/37
305/307
FY34
11 86 52
46
0
10
34
29
35/37
303/305
FY35
11 87 52
48
0
10
32
29
35/37
304/306
FY36
11 88 52
49
0
10
32
29
35 306
FY37
11 90 52
51
0
10
33
29
34 310
FY38
11 91 52
50
0
10
33
29
35 311
FY39
11 92 52
51
0
10
33
29
34 312
FY40
10 90 52
51
0
10
32
29
34 308
FY41
10 89 52
51
0
11
33
29
34 309
FY42
10 87 52
52
0
12
32
29
34 308
FY43
10 84 52
52
0
12
31
29
34 304
FY44
10 83 52
52
0
12
31
29
34 303
Source: FY2015 30-year (FY2015-FY2044) shipbuilding plan.
Note: Figures for support ships include five JHSVs transferred from the Army to the Navy and operated by the
Navy primarily for the performance of Army missions.
Key: FY = Fiscal Year; CVN = aircraft carriers; LSC = surface combatants (i.e., cruisers and destroyers); SSC
= small surface combatants (i.e., frigates, Littoral Combat Ships [LCSs], and mine warfare ships); SSN = attack
submarines; SSGN = cruise missile submarines; SSBN = ballistic missile submarines; AWS = amphibious
warfare ships; CLF = combat logistics force (i.e., resupply) ships; Supt = support ships.
Congressional Research Service
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Observations that can be made about the Navy’s FY2015 30-year (FY2015-FY2044) shipbuilding
plan and resulting projected force levels included the following:
• Total of 264 ships; average of about 8.8 per year. The plan includes a total of
264 ships to be procured, two less than the number in the FY2014 30-year
(FY2014-FY2043) shipbuilding plan. The total of 264 ships equates to an
average of about 8.8 ships per year, which is slightly higher than the approximate
average procurement rate (sometimes called the steady-state replacement rate) of
about 8.7 ships per year that would be needed over the long run to achieve and
maintain a fleet of 306 ships, assuming an average life of 35 years for Navy
ships.
• Proposed modified counting rules affect small surface combatants and
support ships. As can be seen in Table 4, the Navy’s proposed modified rules
for what ships to include in the count of the number of battle force ships (see
“Proposal to Modify What Ships Are Included in the Count of Battle Force
Ships” in “Oversight Issues for Congress for FY2015”) would affect the reported
figures for small surface combatants during the period FY2015-FY2024 and the
reported figures for support ships during the period FY2015-FY2035.
• Eleven cruisers proposed for some form of reduced operating status
included in count. As part of its FY2015 budget submission, the Navy is
proposing to put 11 of its 22 Aegis cruisers into some form of reduced operating
status starting in FY2015, and then return them to service years from now. The 11
cruisers proposed for some form of reduced operating status are included in the
count of battle force ships shown in Table 4 and Table 6 during the years that
they are in reduced operating status.
• Projected shortfalls in amphibious ships, small surface combatants, and
attack submarines. The FY2015 30-year shipbuilding plan, like many previous
Navy 30-year shipbuilding plans, does not include enough ships to fully support
all elements of the Navy’s 306-ship goal over the entire 30-year period. In
particular, the Navy projects that the fleet would experience a shortfall in
amphibious ships from FY2015 through FY2017, a shortfall in small surface
combatants from FY2015 through FY2027, and a shortfall in attack submarines
from FY2025 through FY2034.
• Ballistic missile submarine force to be reduced temporarily to 10 boats. As a
result of a decision in the FY2013 budget to defer the scheduled procurement of
the first Ohio replacement (SSBN[X]) ballistic missile submarine by two years,
from FY2019 to FY2021, the ballistic missile submarine force is projected to
drop to a total of 10 or 11 boats—one or two boats below the 12-boat SSBN
force-level goal—during the period FY2029-FY2041. The Navy says this
reduction is acceptable for meeting current strategic nuclear deterrence mission
requirements, because none of the 10 or 11 boats during these years will be
encumbered by long-term maintenance.5
5 For further discussion of this issue, see CRS Report R41129, Navy Ohio Replacement (SSBN[X]) Ballistic Missile
Submarine Program: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
Congressional Research Service
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Comparison of First 10 Years of 30-Year Plans
Table 5 and Table 6 below show the first 10 years of planned annual ship procurement quantities
and projected Navy force sizes in 30-year shipbuilding plans dating back to the first such plan,
which was submitted in 2000 in conjunction with the FY2001 budget. By reading vertically down
each column, one can see how the ship procurement quantity or Navy force size projected for a
given fiscal year changed as that year drew closer to becoming the current budget year.
Congressional Research Service
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Table 5. Ship Procurement Quantities in First 10 Years of 30-Year Shipbuilding Plans
Years shown are fiscal years
FY of 30-year plan
(year
submitted) 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
FY01
plan
(2000) 8 8 8 8 7 5 6 6 6 7
FY02
plan
(2001)
6
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
FY03
plan
(2002)
5 5 7 7
11
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
FY04
plan
(2003)
7 8 7 7 9
14
15
13
14
15
FY05
plan
(2004)
9 6 8 9
17
14
15
14
16
15
FY06
plan
(2005)
4 7 7 9
10
12
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
FY07
plan
(2006)
7 7 11 12 14 13 12 11 11 10
FY08
plan
(2007)
7
11
12
13
12
12
10
12
11
6
FY09
plan
(2008)
7 8 8
12
12
13
13
12
12
13
FY10
plan
(2009)
8 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a
FY11
plan
(2010)
9 8
12
9
12
9
12
9
13
9
FY12
plan
(2011)
10
13
11
12
9
12
10
12
8 9
FY13
plan
(2012)
10
7 8 9 7
11
8
12
9
12
FY14
plan
(2013)
8 8 7 9 9
10
10
10
11
14
FY15
plan
(2014)
7 8
11
10
8
11
8
11
11
13
Source: Navy 30-year shipbuilding plans supplemented by annual Navy budget submissions (including 5-year shipbuilding plans) for fiscal years shown. n/a means not
available—see notes below.
Notes: The FY2001 30-year plan submitted in 2000 was submitted under a one-time-only legislative provision, Section 1013 of the FY2000 National Defense
Authorization Act (S. 1059/P.L. 106-65 of October 5, 1999). No provision required DOD to submit a 30-year shipbuilding plan in 2001 or 2002, when Congress
considered DOD’s proposed FY2002 and FY2003 DOD budgets. (In addition, no FYDP was submitted in 2001, the first year of the George W. Bush Administration.)
Section 1022 of the FY2003 Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4546/P.L. 107-314 of December 2, 2002) created a requirement to submit a 30-year
shipbuilding plan each year, in conjunction with each year’s defense budget. This provision was codified at 10 U.S.C. 231. The first 30-year plan submitted under this
provision was the one submitted in 2003, in conjunction with the proposed FY2004 DOD budget. For the next several years, 30-year shipbuilding plans were submitted
each year, in conjunction with each year’s proposed DOD budget. An exception occurred in 2009, the first year of the Obama Administration, when DOD submitted a
CRS-10
proposed budget for FY2010 with no accompanying FYDP or 30-year Navy shipbuilding plan. Section 1023 of the FY2011 Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act
(H.R. 6523/P.L. 111-383 of January 7, 2011) amended 10 U.S.C. 231 to require DOD to submit a 30-year shipbuilding plan once every four years, in the same year that
DOD submits a Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Consistent with Section 1023, DOD did not submit a new 30-year shipbuilding plan at the time that it submitted
the proposed FY2012 DOD budget. At the request of the House Armed Services Committee, the Navy submitted the FY2012 30-year (FY2012-FY2041) shipbuilding
plan in late-May 2011. Section 1011 of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1540/P.L. 112-81 of December 31, 2011) amended 10 U.S.C. 231 to
reinstate the requirement to submit a 30-year shipbuilding plan each year, in conjunction with each year’s defense budget.
Table 6. Projected Navy Force Sizes in First 10 years of 30-Year Shipbuilding Plans
Years shown are fiscal years; where two figures are shown, the first is the figure using existing rules for counting battle force ships, and the second is the
figure using the Navy’s proposed modified rules for counting battle force ships.
FY of 30-year
plan (year
submitted)
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
FY01 plan (2000) 316 315 313 313 313 311 311 304 305 305
FY02 plan (2001)
316 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a
n/a
FY03 plan (2002)
314 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a
n/a
n/a
FY04 plan (2003)
292 292 291 296 301 305 308 313 317 321
FY05 plan (2004)
290 290 298 303 308 307 314 320 328 326
FY06 plan (2005)
289
293
297
301
301
306
n/a
n/a
305
n/a
FY07 plan (2006)
285
294
299
301
306
315
317
315
314
317
FY08 plan (2007)
286
289
293
302
310
311
307
311
314
322
FY09 plan (2008)
286
287
289
290
293
287
288
291
301
309
FY10 plan (2009)
287
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a
FY11 plan (2010)
284
287
287
285
285
292
298
305
311
315
FY12 plan (2011)
290
287
286
286
297
301
311
316
322
324
FY13 plan (2012)
285
279
276
284
285
292
300
295
296
298
FY14 plan (2013)
282
270
280
283
291
300
295
296
297
297
FY15 plan (2014)
274/ 280/ 286/ 295/ 301/ 304/ 304 306/ 311/ 313/
284
290
296
304
309
308
307
314
315
CRS-11
Source: Navy 30-year shipbuilding plans supplemented by annual Navy budget submissions (including 5-year shipbuilding plans) for fiscal years shown. n/a means not
available—see notes below.
Notes: The FY2001 30-year plan submitted in 2000 was submitted under a one-time-only legislative provision, Section 1013 of the FY2000 National Defense
Authorization Act (S. 1059/P.L. 106-65 of October 5, 1999). No provision required DOD to submit a 30-year shipbuilding plan in 2001 or 2002, when Congress
considered DOD’s proposed FY2002 and FY2003 DOD budgets. Section 1022 of the FY2003 Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4546/P.L. 107-314 of
December 2, 2002) created a requirement to submit a 30-year shipbuilding plan each year, in conjunction with each year’s defense budget. This provision was codified at
10 U.S.C. 231. The first 30-year plan submitted under this provision was the one submitted in 2003, in conjunction with the proposed FY2004 DOD budget. For the next
several years, 30-year shipbuilding plans were submitted each year, in conjunction with each year’s proposed DOD budget. An exception occurred in 2009, the first year
of the Obama Administration, when DOD submitted a proposed budget for FY2010 with no accompanying FYDP or 30-year Navy shipbuilding plan. The FY2006 plan
included data for only selected years beyond FY2011. Section 1023 of the FY2011 Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 6523/P.L. 111-383 of January 7,
2011) amended 10 U.S.C. 231 to require DOD to submit a 30-year shipbuilding plan once every four years, in the same year that DOD submits a Quadrennial Defense
Review (QDR). Consistent with Section 1023, DOD did not submit a new 30-year shipbuilding plan at the time that it submitted the proposed FY2012 DOD budget. At
the request of the House Armed Services Committee, the Navy submitted the FY2012 30-year (FY2012-FY2041) shipbuilding plan in late-May 2011. Section 1011 of the
FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1540/P.L. 112-81 of December 31, 2011) amended 10 U.S.C. 231 to reinstate the requirement to submit a 30-year
shipbuilding plan each year, in conjunction with each year’s defense budget.
CRS-12
Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Oversight Issues for Congress for FY2015
Mid-Life Refueling Overhaul of Aircraft Carrier George
Washington (CVN-73)
One potential oversight issue for Congress concerns the Navy’s proposal to defer until FY2016 a
decision on whether to proceed with the mid-life nuclear refueling overhaul of the aircraft carrier
George Washington (CVN-73). To operate for a full 50-year life, existing Nimitz (CVN-68) class
nuclear-powered carriers are given a mid-life nuclear refueling overhaul, called a refueling
complex overhaul (RCOH), when they are 20 to 25 years old, which is when their original
nuclear fuel core has been exhausted. The RCOH gives the ship a new nuclear fuel core sufficient
to power the ship for the remainder of its 50-year life. The RCOH also involves a significant
amount of other overhaul, repair, and modernization work on the ship. An RCOH requires about
44 months from contract award to delivery. RCOHs are funded through the Navy’s shipbuilding
account (the Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy [SCN] appropriation account).
RCOHs are done primarily at Huntington Ingalls Industries/Newport News Shipbuilding
(HII/NNS) in Newport News, VA, and form a significant part of HII/NNS’s business base, along
with construction of new nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and construction of new nuclear-
powered submarines. RCOHs in recent years have been scheduled in a more or less heel-to-toe
fashion at HII/NNS—when one RCOH is done, the next one is scheduled to begin soon
thereafter. RCOHs are done in a particular dry dock at HII/NNS, so a carrier undergoing an
RCOH in that dry dock must have its work finished and depart the dry dock before the following
carrier can be moved into the dry dock for its RCOH.
The next carrier scheduled for an RCOH is the George Washington (CVN-73). The total
estimated cost of the CVN-73 RCOH in the Navy’s FY2014 budget submission was $4,738.2
million (i.e., about $4.7 billion).
Until the FY2015 budget submission, the CVN-73 RCOH was scheduled for FY2016. The CVN-
73 RCOH received $12 million in advance procurement (AP) funding in FY2012, $69.9 million
in AP funding in FY2013, and $245.8 million in AP funding in FY2014. Under the Navy’s
FY2014 budget submission, another $491.1 million in AP funding was projected for FY2015, and
the balance of the RCOH’s estimated cost of $4,738.2 million was to be provided in FY2016 and
FY2017.
As part of its FY2015 budget submission, DOD removed funding for the CVN-73 RCOH from
the FY2015-FY2019 Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) and is proposing to defer the question of
whether to proceed with the CVN-73 RCOH until next year, when Congress will consider the
FY2016 defense budget. The Navy’s proposed FY2015 budget includes about $46 million in
funding in the Operation and Maintenance, Navy (OMN) appropriation account to defuel CVN-
73. Defueling the ship (i.e., removing the original nuclear fuel core) is an initial step to be
performed on the ship at NNS, regardless of whether the ship is to undergo an RCOH or be
inactivated.
DOD and Navy officials state that if Congress provides an indication this year that it supports the
defense spending levels in the FY2015-FY2019 FYDP, which are higher than those called for in
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
the Budget Control Act of 2011 as amended, then the FYDP would be reformulated for FY2016
and subsequent years to include the roughly $7.0 billion in additional funding that would be
needed over the FYDP to fund the CVN-73 RCOH and keep the ship and its associated carrier air
wing in service.6 Of this $7.0 billion in additional funding, $796.2 million would be required in
FY2015.7
DOD and Navy officials state that if Congress does not provide an indication this year that it
supports the defense spending levels in the FYDP, CVN-73 would instead be inactivated (i.e.,
permanently retired from service), and its associated air wing would be disestablished. Other
things held equal, inactivating CVN-73 would reduce the Navy’s carrier force to 10 ships for the
next 25 years or so (i.e., the period of time that CVN-73 would have remained in service if it had
received an RCOH).
The Navy states that, of the funding for the CVN-73 RCOH that was provided in FY2012 and
FY2013, $20.6 million represent sunk costs that would not be recoverable if CVN-73 were not to
receive an RCOH. The Navy states that this $20.6 million “primarily supported prime contractor
and government initial planning efforts for the refueling overhaul as well as some initial
modernization GFI [government-furnished information] development efforts.”8
Navy officials state that deferring until next year the decision on whether to proceed with the
CVN-73 RCOH would mean that the RCOH, if were to occur, would be delayed some number of
months from the schedule shown in the Navy’s FY2014 budget submission, and consequently
would likely become an FY2017 action rather than an FY2016 action. Navy officials state that if
the delay in the start of the RCOH were not more than a certain number of months, it would not
cause a cascading delay in the schedule for the following RCOH (to be done on CVN-74),
because there is currently some slack time on the back end of the CVN-73 RCOH period to
absorb some delay in the CVN-73 RCOH without affecting the schedule for the CVN-74 RCOH.
10 U.S.C. 5062(b) states, “The naval combat forces of the Navy shall include not less than 11
operational aircraft carriers.” The requirement as stated in this statute is not contingent on the
DOD budget being at a certain level in coming years. To the contrary, the central purpose of 10
U.S.C. 5062(b) is to act as a mandate to the executive branch to support force of not less than 11
carriers in executive branch planning, regardless of budgetary or other circumstances. DOD has
not, as part of its FY2015 budget submission, requested that 10 U.S.C. 5062(b) be amended or
repealed.
Potential oversight questions for Congress include the following:
6 The estimated total cost to perform the CVN-73 RCOH and retain the carrier and its associated air wing is about $8.1
billion. (This figure includes about $5.9 to perform the RCOH and keep the ship in service, about $1.4 billion to retain
the air wing, and about $800 million for associated logistics, manpower, and training costs.) The FY2015-FY2019
FYDP currently includes about $1.1 billion to support the inactivation of CVN-73. Reprogramming this $1.1 billion in
inactivation funding to support the RCOH would leave a requirement for about $7.0 billion in additional funding.
Source: Navy information paper provided to CRS by Navy Office of Legislative Affairs on April 7, 2014.
7 The total estimated requirement for FY2015 is $842.2 million. This figure includes the $46 million currently in the
budget for the ship’s defueling, leaving a net requirement of $796.2 million in additional funding for FY2015. Source:
Navy information paper provided to CRS by Navy Office of Legislative Affairs on April 7, 2014.
8 Source: Navy information paper dated March 13, 2014, and provided to CRS by the Navy Office of Legislative
Affairs on April 17, 2014.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
• Is DOD’s proposal to treat the issue of whether to proceed with the CVN-73
RCOH (and consequently whether there are to be 10 or 11 carriers for the next 25
years or so) as a question to be decided next year, depending on indications of
congressional support for a certain DOD budget level in coming years, consistent
with 10 U.S.C. 5062(b)? Does DOD’s proposal in effect treat the 11-carrier
requirement in 10 U.S.C. 5062(b) as an optional matter rather than a mandate? If
so, would this create a precedent for the executive branch to treat similar
provisions in the U.S. Code as optional matters rather than mandates? For
example, would it create a precedent for DOD, if it so desired, to begin treating
as an optional matter the long-standing requirement in 10 U.S.C. 5063(a) that the
Marine Corps “shall be so organized as to include not less than three combat
divisions and three air wings, and such other land combat, aviation, and other
services as may be organic therein?” If the executive branch were to begin
treating statutory provisions like 10 U.S.C. 5062(b) as optional matters rather
than mandates, what implications might this have for policy and program
execution, and for Congress’s power to legislatively establish policy and program
goals?
• What would be the operational impact for the Navy of reducing the carrier force
to 10 ships for the next 25 years or so (and also eliminating its associated carrier
air wing)? What impact would it have on the Navy’s ability to fulfill its missions?
• If the FDYP were reformulated to include the $7 billion in additional funding
needed to keep CVN-73 and its associated air wing, what other defense programs
would have their funding reduced, and what would be the impact of these
reductions on DOD’s ability to fulfill its missions?
• What would be the impact on HII/NNS and the other parts of the aircraft carrier
industrial base if CVN-73 were inactivated rather than given an RCOH? What
impact, if any, would this have on the cost of other work performed at NNS
during these years, and on the eventual cost of the CVN-74 RCOH?9
Proposal to Put 11 Cruisers into Reduced Operating Status
A total of 27 Ticonderoga (CG-47) class Aegis cruisers (CGs 47 through 73) were procured for
the Navy between FY1978 and FY1988; the ships entered service between 1983 and 1994. The
first five ships in the class (CGs 47 through 51), which were built to an earlier technical standard
in certain respects, were judged by the Navy to be too expensive to modernize and were removed
from service in 2004-2005, leaving 22 ships in operation (CGs 52 through 73).
As a cost-saving measure, the Navy’s FY2015 budget proposes putting the 11 youngest Aegis
cruisers (CGs 63 through 73) into some form of reduced operating status starting in FY2015.
While in reduced operating status, the ships would be modernized in preparation for their
eventual return to full operational status. The ships would be returned to full operational status
9 For press reports discussing the industrial-base aspects of the issue, see Lara Seligman, “Shipbuilder: Navy’s
Timeline For CVN-73 ‘Not In Accordance With Our Plan,’” Inside the Navy, March 24, 2014; Olga Belogolova, “PEO
Carriers: A Cut From 11 To 10 Carriers Would Impact Industrial Base,” Inside the Navy, February 24, 2014; Michael
Fabey, “Foregoing Carrier RCOH Won’t Disrupt Future Work, HII CEO Says,” Aerospace Daily & Defense Report,
March 25, 2014: 4; Rick Giannini and Darrell Grow, “Why Aircraft Carrier Workers Deserve a Better Plan from the
Pentagon,” Defense One (www.defenseone.com), March 23, 2014.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
years from now, as one-for-one replacements for the 11 older Aegis cruisers that are to remain in
full operational status (CGs 52 through 62), as each of those 11 older cruisers reaches the end of
its service life. Among the 11 Aegis cruisers that are proposed for reduced operating status are
four that are capable of ballistic missile defense (BMD) operations.10 Under a reported
preliminary version of the Navy’s plan, the 11 cruisers put into reduced operating status would
return to service between FY2019 and FY2026, and the ships would operate into the 2030s and
(in some cases) the 2040s.11 Potential oversight questions for Congress include the following:
• What are the comparative costs to keep the 11 cruisers in operation vs. putting
them into reduced operating status?
• What are the potential operational impacts of putting the 11 cruisers into reduced
operating status? How would it affect the Navy’s ability to perform its missions?
• The 11 cruisers have limited remaining growth potential. Will that growth
potential be enough for the ships to support the combat system equipment that
would be needed to keep the ships mission effective into the 2030s and 2040s?
• The CG-47s have crews of 300 or more personnel. By the 2030s and 2040s, the
Navy will include some number of newer-design surface combatants that
incorporate technologies for reducing crew size so as to reduce annual operating
and support (O&S) costs. Assuming the 11 CG-47s could be made mission
effective (see previous question), would they be considered mission cost
effective, given their crew-related costs, by future Navy leaders compared to
other Navy surface combatants in the 2030s and 2040s?
• In light of the two previous questions, can current Navy leaders guarantee that
future Navy leaders years from now will follow-through on the plan to bring
these 11 cruisers back into service and operate them into the 2030s and 2040s? If
Navy leaders cannot guarantee this, how does that affect the balance of potential
costs and benefits of the Navy’s plan?
• Given that the 11 cruisers would be assigned minimal caretaker crews rather than
full crews during the time they are in reduced operating status, how many of
these 11 cruisers could be quickly returned to full operational status and deployed
in response to a contingency that might require these ships? If the answer is less
than 11, then should all 11 continue to be included in the count of battle force
ships, as the Navy is doing in its FY2015 30-year shipbuilding plan?
A May 22, 2014, press report states:
It would not be a “bad thing” if Congress ultimately blocks the Navy from taking half its
cruisers out of service next year as long as lawmakers follow a historical pattern of providing
the funds to keep the ships operating, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert
said Wednesday [May 21].
10 These four ships are CG-67 (Shiloh), CG-70 (Lake Erie), CG-72 (Vella Gulf), and CG-73 (Port Royal). For more on
the Aegis BMD program, see CRS Report RL33745, Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
11 See USNI News Editor, “Navy’s New ‘Battle Force’ Tally To Include Hospital Ships and Small Patrol Craft,” USNI
News (http://news.usni.org), March 11, 2014.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Greenert told reporters the Navy’s 2015 budget proposal that includes sidelining 11 of the 22
cruisers for long-term modernization was not an ideal solution but instead driven by
spending constraints. If Congress can pay to operate the ships, the Navy will keep active, he
said.
“It’s not a good idea to put into a modernization availability a ship before it really needs to
go in and that is not something we wanted to do but felt we were compelled to do,” Greenert
said at a breakfast hosted by the Defense Writers Group. “So if the decision is ‘no, I don’t
want you do that, here’s the money, continue to operate those ships,’ that’s not a bad thing.”
“We need ships,” he added....
“What would be optimal is that we continue to operate (the ships) and then when the time
comes bring them in for modernization,” he said. “But I need operating money to do that,
personnel money, and we don’t have that in the funds given to us.”12
Proposal to Retire All 10 Remaining FFG-7 Frigates in FY2015
As another cost-saving measure, the Navy as part of its FY2015 budget submission is proposing
to retire all 10 of its remaining Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7) class frigates in FY2015. By
comparison, under the Navy’s FY2014 budget submission, the Navy planned to retire seven of the
ships in FY2015, two more in FY2017, and the final ship in FY2020. The proposed retirements of
these frigates contribute to the projected shortfall in small surface combatants shown in the earlier
years of Table 4. Potential oversight questions for Congress include the following:
• What are the comparative costs to keep some or all of these 10 frigates in service
vs. retiring them in FY2015?
• What are the potential operational impacts of retiring all 10 of these frigates in
FY2015? How would it affect the Navy’s ability to perform its missions?
• Retired FFG-7 class frigates in some cases have been transferred to foreign
navies. What are the Navy’s plans regarding the post-retirement disposition of the
10 remaining FFG-7 frigates?
Proposal to Modify What Ships Are Included in the Count of Battle
Force Ships
As mentioned earlier, the Navy as part of its FY2015 budget submission is proposing to modify
the rules for what ships to include in the count of the total number of battle force ships in the
Navy. The current counting rules date back to an agreement between the Navy and the Office of
the Secretary of Defense in 1981. The Navy’s proposed changes would:
• include certain ships in the count that have been routinely requested by a U.S.
regional combatant commander (COCOM) and allocated among requesting
COCOMs via DOD’s Global Force Management Allocation Plan (GFMAP)—
such ships would be included in the count on a case-by-case basis as
12 Mike McCarthy, “‘Not A Bad Thing’ If Congress Blocks Attempt To Sideline Cruisers, Navy Chief Says,” Defense
Daily, May 22, 2014: 2-3.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
recommended by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) with the approval of the
Secretary of the Navy, as a temporary authorization that would remain in effect if
the ships were no longer requested or were retired; and
• exclude ships from the count that are not self-deployable, unless they are forward
deployed (i.e., forward homeported or forward stationed) and approved for
inclusion in the count by the Secretary of the Navy.
The effect of these changes would be to include in the count the Navy’s 10 Cyclone (PC-1) class
patrol craft, which are currently operating in the Persian Gulf region, the Navy’s two hospital
ships (TAHs), and one high-speed transport (HST) ship, while excluding from the count three
mine countermeasures (MCM) ships. As discussed earlier in connection with Table 4, these
proposed changes would affect the reported figures for small surface combatants during the
period FY2015-FY2024 and the reported figures for support ships during the period FY2015-
FY2035.
In proposing the changes, the Navy argues that the current counting rules “do not capture special
situations, such as regional demand [for ships], where non-battle force ships should be counted on
a temporary basis.” The Navy argues that the proposed new rules are “more flexible in response
to Global Force Management Plans and COCOM demand signals.”13 They could also argue that
the largest single proposed modification—the inclusion of the Navy’s 10 Cyclone (PC-1) class
patrol boats in the count—is consistent with the inclusion of certain patrol craft of the day (then
designated PGs and PHMs) in the original 1981 definition of the types of ships to be counted as
battle force ships.
Skeptics could argue that the proposed changes, if implemented, would make it harder to compare
total numbers of battle force ships over time on an apples-to-apples basis, and that they would
complicate congressional oversight by making the rules less transparent to outsiders, particularly
in terms of reconstructing or auditing figures for prior years, since doing so would require access
to records of where individual ships were homeported in a given year and which Secretary of the
Navy approvals were in effect in a given year. Skeptics might also argue that these changes are
being proposed at a time that the Navy is proposing to remove ships from service as a cost-saving
measure, and that the changes, if implemented, would have the effect of obscuring the resulting
reduction in the size of the Navy.14
Potential Impact on Size of Navy of Limiting DOD Spending to
BCA Caps Through FY2021
Another potential issue for Congress concerns the potential impact on the size of the Navy of
limiting DOD spending through FY2021 to levels at or near the caps established in the Budget
13 Source: Navy briefing charts on FY2015 30-year shipbuilding plan. See also letter from Secretary of the Navy Ray
Mabus to The Honorable Richard J. Durbin, March 7, 2014, posted at USNI News (http://news.usni.org), March 11,
2014.
14 For press reports discussing the Navy’s proposed changes in counting rules, see Christopher P. Cavas, “New
Counting Rules Add Up To More Ships,” DefenseNews.com, March 11, 2014; USNI News Editor, “Navy’s New
‘Battle Force’ Tally to Include Hospital Ships and Small Patrol Craft,” USNI News (http://news.usni.org), March 11,
2014; Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., “Outrage On Capitol Hill As Navy Changes Ship-Counting Rules,” Breaking Defense
(http://breakingdefense.com), March 11, 2014.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Control Act of 2011 (BCA) as amended. Navy officials state that a decision to reduce DOD’s
budget to such levels would eventually lead to a smaller Navy.
Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations, provided detailed testimony on this
question in his prepared statements for hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee on
November 7, 2013, and the House Armed Services Committee on September 18, 2013. In his
prepared statement for the November 7, 2013, hearing, which was similar to his prepared
statement for the September 18, 2013, hearing, Greenert testified that
Consistent with what the Deputy Secretary of Defense told this committee in August, if
fiscally constrained to the revised discretionary caps, over the long term (2013-2023), the
Navy of 2020 would not be able to execute the missions described in the DSG [Defense
Strategic Guidance]. There are numerous ways to adjust Navy’s portfolio of programs to
meet the BCA revised discretionary caps. These are currently under deliberation within the
department. As requested, the following provides perspective on the level and type of
adjustments that will need to be made.
Any scenario to address the fiscal constraints under current law must include sufficient
readiness, capability and manpower to complement the force structure capacity of ships and
aircraft. This balance would need to be maintained to ensure each unit will be effective, even
if the overall fleet is not able to execute the DSG. There are, however, many ways to balance
between force structure, readiness, capability and manpower.
One potential fiscal and programmatic scenario would result in a “2020 Fleet” of about 255-
260 ships, about 30 less than today, and about 40 less than Navy’s PB-14 [President’s
Budget for FY2014] submission. It would include 1-2 fewer CSG [carrier strike groups], and
1-2 fewer ARG [amphibious ready groups] than today. This 2020 fleet would not meet the
DSG requirements for the mission to Provide a Stabilizing Presence. As a result, Navy would
be less able to reinforce deterrence, build alliances and partnerships and influence events
abroad.
• Navy would not increase our global deployed presence, which would remain at about 95
ships in 2020. The lethality inherent in this presence, based on ship type deployed, would be
less than today’s 95-ship presence.
• Navy would not increase presence in the Asia-Pacific, which would stay at about 50 ships
in 2020. This would largely negate the ship force structure portion of our plan to rebalance to
the Asia Pacific region directed by the DSG.
• Navy would not “place a premium on U.S. military presence in—and in support of—
partner nations” in the Middle East, since presence would decrease and, assuming we use the
same ship deployment scheme in the future, there would be gaps in CSG presence totaling 2-
3 months each year.
• Navy would still “evolve our posture” in Europe by meeting our ballistic missile defense
European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) requirements with four BMD-capable DDG
homeported in Rota, Spain and two land based sites in Romania and Poland. Additional
presence would still be provided by forward operating JHSV, MLP, AFSB and some
rotationally deployed combatants.
• Navy would still provide “innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches” to security
in Africa and South America by deploying, on average, one JHSV and one LCS continuously
to both regions and maintaining an AFSB in AFRICOM’s area of responsibility.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
In order to sustain a balance of force structure (current and future), modernization and
personnel within our portfolio, continued compliance with the BCA revised discretionary
caps would compel us to reduce our investments in force structure and modernization, which
would result in a “2020 Fleet” that would not meet DSG direction in the following mission
areas:
Counter Terrorism and Irregular Warfare (CT/IW). We would not have the capacity to
conduct widely distributed CT/IW missions, as defined in the DSG. There would be
inadequate LCS available to allocate to this non-core Navy mission, in the amount defined
by the FSA and concurred upon by Special Operations Command.
Deter and Defeat Aggression. We would not be able to conduct one large-scale operation and
also counter aggression by an opportunistic aggressor in a second theater. In this scenario,
the fleet would have 9-10 CVN/CSG and 9-10 LHA/D and ARG. We would be able to
sustain about one non-deployed CSG and one non-deployed ARG fully certified and able to
surge on required timelines. Together, our presence and surge forces would be sufficient to
conduct all missions associated with only one large scale operation, as defined today. This
overall force and associated readiness would, however, be sufficient to execute Navy
elements of the DSG mission to Conduct Stability and Counterinsurgency Operations.
Project Power Despite Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) Challenges. Overall, in this
scenario, development of our capabilities to project power would not stay ahead of potential
adversaries’ A2/AD capabilities. We will not meet the projected capability requirements to
assure Joint access in a plausible operational scenario in 2020 due to shortfalls, in particular,
in air and missile defense:
• Some undersea capabilities will be slowed:
• Attainment of the required P-8A inventory (117) would be delayed from 2019 to 2020, and
transition from the P-3C to the P-8A would be delayed from 2019 to 2020.
• Anti-submarine warfare combat system upgrades for DDGs and MFTA installations would
not be affected.
• The LCS ASW Mission Package would be delayed from 2016 to 2017.
• Upgraded sonobuoys and advanced torpedo procurement would still equip all of our
helicopters, SSN, and P-8A in the Western Pacific by 2018.
• Virginia Payload Module (VPM) would still be fielded in 2027 to enable Virginia-class
SSN to replace SSGN that begin retiring in 2026.
• The LCS mine warfare mission package would still field its first increment in 2015 and the
second in 2019.
• Air and missile defense improvements would be slowed:
• SEWIP upgraded electromagnetic sensing and upgraded jamming and deception
capabilities would both be delayed one year (to 2015 and 2018, respectively). Both of these
upgrades are required to counter advances in adversary anti-ship cruise missiles.
• The new Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) would be delivered on only four ships, as
compared to seven under our PB-14 submission, between 2021 and 2024.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
• The Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) Block II would still be fielded in 2020, with 80
missiles being delivered to deployed ships.
• The F-35C Lightning II, the carrier-based variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, would still
field in 2019 and join our CVW forward homeported in the Western Pacific in 2020. Overall,
the number of F-35 procured would decrease by about 30 aircraft in 2020.
• All components of the improved air-to-air IR “kill chain” that circumvents adversary radar
jamming would be delayed by two years. The Infrared Search and Track (IRST) sensor
system would field in 2018 and the improved longer-range IRST would not deliver until
2021. The new longer-range AIM-9X Block III missile would not be fielded until 2023.
• Improvements to the air-to-air RF “kill chain” would be slowed down as F/A-18E/F Block
II Super Hornet anti-jamming upgrades would be delayed to 2020. The longer-range AIM-
120D missile would still field in 2014 but equipping of all Pacific carrier air wings would be
delayed by two years to 2022.
• The Navy Integrated Fire Control – Counter Air (NIFC-CA) network would still initially
field with the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye in 2015, but only four CVW (compared to six in our
PB-14 submission) would have it by 2020. Transition to the E-2D would be delayed three
years to 2025.
Operate Effectively in Space and Cyber Space. Plans to recruit, hire and train 976 additional
cyber operators and form 40 computer operations teams by 2017 would not be impacted.
This is a priority in any fiscal scenario. However, the BCA’s reduced funding levels would
delay replacement of our cyber systems and decrease our ability to defend our networks.
Maintain a Safe, Secure, and Effective Nuclear Deterrent. We would still be able to sustain
today’s ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) force. The SSBN(X) would still deliver in 2030
to replace retiring Ohio class SSBN while meeting requirements for SSBN presence and
surge. This is the top priority program for the Navy.
Defend the Homeland and Provide Support to Civil Authorities. We would still meet the
capacity requirements for these missions.
Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction. We would still meet the presence requirements for
this mission.
Conduct Humanitarian, Disaster Relief, and Other Operations. We would still meet the
presence requirements for this mission.
The extent of the fiscal changes in the BCA, when compared to current program and budget
levels, would compel Navy to request relief from several program mandates and force
structure capacity limits, in order to sustain and build a fleet with a balance of ship types. For
example, mandated limits govern the size of the force, minimum funding for certain
activities and facilities, and changes to the number of personnel at a base.15
15 Statement of Admiral Jonathan Greenert, U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, Before the Senate Armed Services
Committee on the Impact of Sequestration on the National Defense, November 7, 2013, pp. 7-11. For Greenert’s
statement for the September 18, 2013, hearing, see Statement of Admiral Jonathan Greenert, U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval
Operations, Before the House Armed Services Committee on Planning for Sequestration in FY 2014 and Perspectives
of the Military Services on the Strategic Choices and Management Review, September 18, 2013, pp. 6-10.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Appropriate Future Size and Structure of Navy in Light of Strategic
and Budgetary Changes
Another potential oversight issue for Congress concerns the appropriate future size and structure
of the Navy. Changes in strategic and budgetary circumstances have led to a broad debate over
the future size and structure of the military, including the Navy. Changes in strategic
circumstances include, among other things, the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, the
winding down of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, China’s military (including naval)
modernization effort,16 maritime territorial disputes involving China,17 and Russia’s seizure and
annexation of Crimea.
On January 5, 2012, the Administration announced that, in light of the end of U.S. combat
operations in Iraq, the winding down of such operations in Afghanistan, and developments in the
Asia-Pacific region, U.S. defense strategy in coming years will include a stronger focus on the
Asia-Pacific region.18 Since the Asia-Pacific region is primarily a maritime and aerospace theater
for the DOD, this shift in strategic focus is expected by many observers to result in a shift in the
allocation of DOD resources toward the Navy and Air Force. DOD officials have indicated that if
planned levels of DOD spending in future years are reduced as a result of the BCA or other
legislative action, they will seek to protect efforts supporting a stronger focus on the Asia-Pacific
region.
The Navy’s current goal for a fleet of 306 ships reflects a number of judgments and planning
factors (some of which the Navy receives from the Office of the Secretary of Defense), including
but not limited to the following:
• U.S. interests and the U.S. role in the world, and the U.S. military strategy for
supporting those interests and that role;
• current and projected Navy missions in support of U.S. military strategy,
including both wartime operations and day-to-day forward-deployed operations;
• current and projected capabilities of potential adversaries, including their anti-
access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities;
• regional combatant commander (COCOM) requests for forward-deployed Navy
forces;
• the individual and networked capabilities of current and future Navy ships and
aircraft;
16 For more on the modernization of China’s military (particularly naval) capabilities and its potential implications for
required U.S. Navy capabilities, see CRS Report RL33153, China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy
Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
17 For a discussion of these disputes, see CRS Report R42784, Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone
(EEZ) Disputes Involving China: Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke. See also CRS Report R42930, Maritime
Territorial Disputes in East Asia: Issues for Congress, by Ben Dolven, Mark E. Manyin, and Shirley A. Kan.
18 Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, January 2012, 8 pp.
For more on this document, see CRS Report R42146, Assessing the January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG):
In Brief, by Catherine Dale and Pat Towell. See also CRS Report R42448, Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama
Administration’s “Rebalancing” Toward Asia, coordinated by Mark E. Manyin.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
• basing arrangements for Navy ships, including numbers and locations of ships
homeported in foreign countries;
• maintenance and deployment cycles for Navy ships; and
• fiscal constraints.
With regard to the fourth point above, Navy officials testified in March 2014 that a Navy of 450
ships would be required to fully meet COCOM requests for forward-deployed Navy forces.19 The
difference between a fleet of 450 ships and the current goal for a fleet of 306 ships can be viewed
as one measure of the operational risk associated with the goal of a fleet of 306 ships. A goal for a
fleet of 450 ships might be viewed as a fiscally unconstrained goal.
Actions by China starting in November 2013 that appear aimed at achieving a greater degree of
control over China’s near-seas region,20 followed by Russia’s seizure and annexation of Crimea in
March 2014, have led to a discussion among observers about whether we are currently shifting
from the familiar post-Cold War era of the last 20 to 25 years to a new and different strategic era
characterized by, among other things, renewed great power competition and challenges to key
aspects of the U.S.-led international order that has operated since World War II.21 Some observers
in this discussion have used the term “post-Crimea era” or “post-Crimea world.”22
19 Spoken testimony of Admiral Jonathan Greenert at a March 12, 2014, hearing before the House Armed Services
Committee on the Department of the Navy’s proposed FY2015 budget, as shown in transcript of hearing.
20 For a summary of these actions, see CRS Report R42784, Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
Disputes Involving China: Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
21 See, for example, Anna Applebaum, “China and Russia Bring Back Cold War Tactics,” Washington Post
(www.washingtonpost.com), December 25, 2013; Paul Miller, “China, the United States, and Great Power Diplomacy,”
Foreign Policy (http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com), December 26 2013; Zachary Keck, “America’s Relative Decline:
Should We Panic? The End of the Unipolar Era Will Create New Dangers That the World Mustn’t Overlook,” The
Diplomat (http://thediplomat.com), January 24, 2013; Dan Blumenthal and Michael Mazza, “China Is Like Russia,”
The Weekly Standard (www.weeklystandard.com), March 18, 2014; Paul D. Miller, “Crimea Proves that Great Power
Rivalry Never Left Us,” New York Times (www.nytimes.com), March 21, 2014; March Chad Pillai, “The Return of
Great Power Politics: Re-Examining the Nixon Doctrine,” War on the Rocks (http://warontherocks.com), March 27,
2014; Robert Killebrew, “Containing Russia and Restoring American Power,” War on the Rocks
(http://warontherocks.com), March 27, 2014; David Roche, “West Stumbles as Autocractic Force Trumps Economics,”
Reuters (www.reuters.com), April 1, 2014; David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, “The Outlaw Vladimir Putin,” Wall
Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com), April 8, 2014; Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra, “The Post-Crimea World
Order,” Russia and India Report (http://in.rbth.com), April 14, 2014; Tom Rotnem, “10 Days That Shook the (Post-
Cold War) World, Marietta Daily Journal (http://mdjonline.com), April 22, 2014; Walter Russell Mead, “The Return
of Geopolitics,” Foreign Affairs (www.foreignaffairs.com), May/June 2014; Eric A. Posner, “Sorry, America, the New
World Order Is Dead,” Foreign Policy (www.foreignpolicy.com), May 6, 2014; Dan Blumenthal and Michael Mazza,
“China and The Age of Contempt,” Foreign Policy (http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com), May 15, 2014; Robert Kagan,
“Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire,” New Republic (www.newrepublic.com), May 26, 2014; Walter Russell Mead,
“Putin Did Americans a Favor,” Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com), June 1, 2014; James R. Holmes, “5 Ways
Europe Can Help the US Pivot,” The Diplomat (http://thediplomat.com), June 2, 2014; Walter Russell Mead, “For the
U.S., a Disappointing World,” Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com), June 13, 2014; James Kitfield, “The New
Great Power Triangle Tilt: China, Russia Vs. U.S.,” Breaking Defense (http://breaking defense.com), June 19, 2014;
Frank Hoffman, “No Strategic Success Without 21st Century Seapower: Forward Partnering,” War on the Rocks
(http://warontherocks.com), July 1, 2014; David Hodges, “The Only Defense,” Commentary
(www.commentarymagazine.com), July 1, 2014; Marc M. Wall, “The Great Eurasian Rebalancing Act,” PacNet
(Pacific Forum CSIS), Number 52, July 7, 2014.
22 See, for example, Jim Thomas, “How to Put Military Pressure on Russia,” Wall Street Journal
(http://online.wsj.com), March 9, 2014; Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra, “The Post-Crimea World Order,” Russia and
India Report (http://in.rbth.com), April 14, 2014; Tom Rotnem, “10 Days That Shook the (Post-Cold War) World,
Marietta Daily Journal (http://mdjonline.com), April 22, 2014; “Reshaping Transatlantic Defense and Security for a
(continued...)
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
A shift in strategic eras can lead to a reassessment of assumptions and frameworks of analysis
relating to defense funding levels, strategy, missions, plans, and programs. The shift from the
Cold War to the post-Cold War era led to such a reassessment in the early 1990s. This
reassessment led to numerous substantial changes in U.S. defense plans and programs.23
Numerous other defense programs were changed to lesser degrees or were not changed.
A shift from the post-Cold War era to a new strategic era could lead to a new reassessment of
assumptions and frameworks of analysis relating to defense funding levels, strategy, missions,
plans, and programs. There are some indications that elements of such a reassessment may have
begun. For example, some observers, including General Philip Breedlove, the Commander of
U.S. European Command, have raised the issue of whether the United States should consider
halting the U.S. military drawdown in Europe, so as to respond to a more assertive Russia.24 As
another possible example, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in his February 2014
announcement regarding the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, stated in part:
The LCS was designed to perform certain missions—such as mine sweeping and anti-
submarine warfare—in a relatively permissive environment. But we need to closely examine
whether the LCS has the independent protection and firepower to operate and survive against
(...continued)
Post-Crimean World,” Panel remarks by NATO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Alexander Vershbow at the
Wrocław Global Forum (Poland), accessed July 2,2014, at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_110902.htm?
selectedLocale=en; Lilia Shevtsova, “Crowning a Winner in the Post-Crimea World,” American Interest (www.the-
american-interest.com), June 16, 2014; Evan Braden Montgomery, “China’s Missile Forces Are Growing: Is It Time to
Modify the INF Treaty?” The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org), July 2, 2014.
23 The shift from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era led to a shift in the Navy’s formal planning emphasis away
from the scenario of mid-ocean operations against Soviet naval forces during a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict and
toward operations in littoral waters against the land- and sea-based forces of countries other than Russia. This shift was
formalized in a Navy/Marine Corps strategy document entitled ...From the Sea (the ellipse is part of the title), which
was first issued in late 1992. (The text of this document is available at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/navy/
fromsea/fromsea.txt.) The shift in strategic eras and in the Navy’s formal planning emphasis led to numerous changes
in Navy plans and programs. In terms of overall Navy force structure, the planned size of the fleet was reduced
considerably. In undersea warfare, changes included the truncation of the Seawolf (SSN-21) submarine program, the
initiation of the successor Virginia-class submarine program, an increased emphasis on shallow-water antisubmarine
warfare (ASW) operations (including torpedoes with improved shallow-water performance), and a reduced emphasis
on blue-water ASW operations. In surface warfare, the shift in planning emphasis led to the initiation of a program for
a multimission destroyer (now known as the DDG-1000) with an emphasis on operations in littoral waters and land-
attack operations, the initiation years later of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program for addressing identified
capability gaps for countering mines, small boats, and diesel-electric submarines in littoral waters. In naval aviation,
changes in projected mission demands, defense spending levels and (in the case of the A-12 program) development
challenges led to a broad restructuring of naval aviation acquisition programs, including the termination of the A-12
program, the halting of plans or proposals for procuring other types of carrier-based aircraft, the termination of a
program to develop a new long-range air-to-air missile for carrier-based fighters, and the initiation of the F/A-18E/F
program. For additional discussion of the then-emerging impact on Navy plans and programs resulting from the shift
from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era, see Ronald O’Rourke, “The Future of the U.S. Navy,” in Joel J. Sokolsky
and Joseph T. Jockel, editors, Fifty Years of Canada-United States Defense Cooperation, The Road From Ogdensburg,
Edwin Mellen Press, 1992 (papers delivered at “The Road from Ogdensburg: Fifty Years of Canada-U.S. Defense
Cooperation,” a conference held August 16-17, 1990, at St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York), pp. 289-331.
24 Philip Ewing, “General: U.S. Should Stop European Drawdown,” Poliltico Pro Defense, July 1, 2014. See also
Steven Erlanger, “Europe Begins to Rethink Cuts to Military Spending,” New York Times (www.nytimes.com), March
26, 2014; Andrew Tilghman, “Spotlight Back on U.S. European Command,” Military Times (www.militarytimes.com),
March 27, 2014; Peter Apps and Adrian Croft, “Crimean Pushes NATO Back to Russian Focus,” Reuters
(www.reuters.com), March 19, 2014; Karen DeYoung, “As U.S. Ponders Next Moves on Crimea, Experts Rethink
NATO’s Defense Posture,” Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com), March 18, 2014; Steven Erlanger, “Russia’s
Aggression in Crimea Brings NATO Into Renewed Focus,” New York Times (www.nytimes.com), March 18, 2014.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
a more advanced military adversary and emerging new technologies, especially in the Asia
Pacific. If we were to build out the LCS program to 52 ships, as previously planned, it would
represent one- sixth of our future 300-ship Navy. Given continued fiscal restraints, we must
direct shipbuilding resources toward platforms that can operate in every region and along the
full spectrum of conflict.25
For additional discussion of the relationship between U.S. strategy and the size and structure of
U.S. naval forces that can form part of the context for assessing the 30-year shipbuilding plan, see
Appendix C.
Some study groups have made their own proposals for Navy ship force structure that reflect their
own perspectives on the points listed above (particularly the first three and the final one) shows
some of these proposals. For purposes of comparison, Table 7 also shows the Navy’s 306-ship
goal of January 2013.
25 Remarks by Secretary Hagel and Gen. Dempsey on the fiscal year 2015 budget preview in the Pentagon Briefing
Room, February 24, 2014, accessed July 1, 2016, at http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=
5377.
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
Table 7. Recent Study Group Proposals for Navy Ship Force Structure
Center for
Center for
Navy’s
Project on
Independent
a New
Strategic
306-
Defense
Panel
American
and
ship
Alternatives
Heritage
Cato
Assessment
Sustainable
Security
Budgetary
goal of
(PDA)
Foundation
Institute
of 2010
Defense
(CNAS)
Assessments
January
(November
(April
(September
QDR
Task Force
(November
(CSBA)
Ship type
2013
2012)
2011)
2010)a
(July 2010)
(June 2010)
2008)
(2008)b
Submarines
SSBN
12 7 14c 6 14 7 14 12
SSGN
0 6-7 4
0
4
4
0
2
SSN
48 42 55 40 55 37 40 41
Aircraft carriers
CVN
11 9 11 8 11 9 8 11
CVE
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
Surface combatants
Cruiser
22 n/a
18 14
88 72-74 88
85
Destroyer 65
n/a
56
73
Frigate
0 2-7j
14 n/a 0 0 9e
28d
LCS
52 12j 4
n/a
25
48
55
SSC
0
j 0 0 n/a 0 40 0f
Amphibious and Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future) (MPF[F]) ships
Amphibious ships
33 >23 37 23 n/a 27 36 33
MPF(F) ships
0 n/a 0
0 n/a n/a 0
3g
LSD station ships
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7h
Other: Mine warfare (MIW) ships; Combat Logistics Force (CLF) ships (i.e., at-sea resupply ships), and support ships
MIW
0 14j 14 11 0 0 0 0
CLF ships
29 n/a 33 21 n/a
31
36 40
Support ships
33 n/a 25 27 n/a
31
TOTAL battle
306 230 309 241 346 230 300 326i
force ships
Source: Table prepared by CRS based on the fol owing sources: For Heritage Foundation: A Strong National
Defense[:] The Armed Forces America Needs and What They Will Cost, Heritage Foundation, April 5, 2011, pp. 25-
26. For Cato Institute: Benjamin H. Friedman and Christopher Preble, Budgetary Savings from Military Restraint,
Washington, Cato Institute, September 23, 2010 (Policy Analysis No. 667), pp. 6, 8-10, and additional
information provided by Cato Institute to CRS by email on September 22, 2010. For Independent Panel
Assessment: Stephen J. Hadley and William J. Perry, co-chairmen, et al., The QDR in Perspective: Meeting
America’s National Security Needs In the 21st Century, The Final Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent
Panel, Washington, 2010, Figure 3-2 on pages 58-59. For Sustainable Defense Task Force: Debt, Deficits, and
Defense, A Way Forward[:] Report of the Sustainable Defense Task Force, June 11, 2010, pp. 19-20. For CNAS:
Frank Hoffman, From Preponderance to Partnership: American Maritime Power in the 21st Century. Washington,
Center for a New American Security, November 2008. p. 19 (Table 2). For CSBA: Robert O. Work, The US
Navy[:] Charting a Course for Tomorrow’s Fleet. Washington, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments,
2008. p. 81 (Figure 5). For PDA: Carl Conetta, Reasonable Defense, Project on Defense Alternatives,
November 14, 2012, 31 pp.
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Notes: n/a is not addressed in the report. SSBN is nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine; SSGN is
nuclear-powered cruise missile and special operations forces submarine; SSN is nuclear-powered attack
submarine; CVN is large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier; CVE is medium-sized aircraft carrier; LCS is Littoral
Combat Ship; SSC (an acronym created by CRS for this table) is smal surface combatant of 1,000+ tons
displacement—a ship similar to late-1990s Streetfighter concept; MPF(F) is Maritime Prepositioning Force
(Future) ship; LSD is LSD-41/49 class amphibious ship operating as a station ship for a formation like a Global
Fleet Station (GFS); MIW is mine warfare ship; CLF is combat logistics force (i.e., resupply) ship.
a. Figures shown are for the year 2020; for subsequent years, reductions from these figures would be
considered.
b. Figures shown are for the year 2028.
c. The report calls for a force of 280 SLBMs, which appears to equate to a force of 14 SSBNs, each with 20
SLBM tubes.
d. The report calls for a force of 28 small surface combatants, and appears to use the term small surface
combatants the same way that the Navy does in the 30-year shipbuilding plan—as a way of collectively
referring to frigates and LCSs. The small surface combatants (SSCs) called for in the November 2008 CNAS
report are separate from and smaller than the LCS.
e. Maritime Security Frigates.
f.
Plan includes 28 patrol craft (PCs) of a few hundred tons displacement each, as wel as 29 boat detachments
and seven riverine squadrons.
g. Plan shows three Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) ships that the Navy currently plans for the MPF(F)
squadron, plus 16 existing current-generation maritime prepositioning force (MPF) ships and 17 existing
prepositioning ships for Army and other service/agency equipment. Plan also shows 67 other DOD sealift
ships.
h. T-LSDs, meaning LSDs operated by the Military Sealift Command (MSC) with a partly civilian crew.
i.
The CSBA report shows a total of 488 units by including 162 additional force units that do not count
toward the 306-ship goal under the battle force ships counting method that has been used since the early
1980s for public policy discussions of the size of the Navy. These 162 additional force units include 16
existing current-generation maritime prepositioning force (MPF) ships and 17 existing prepositioning ships
for Army and other service/agency equipment, 67 other DOD sealift ships, 28 PCs, 29 boat detachments,
and certain other smal -scale units. The CSBA report proposes a new counting method for naval/maritime
forces that includes units such as these in the total count.
j.
The report “prescribes ending procurement of the LCS with the 12 already purchased. The Reasonable
Defense model foresees a future cohort of 28 to 33 smal surface combatants, including a mix of the 12 LCS
that have already been procured, 14 Mine Counter Measure (MCM) ships already in the fleet, and small
frigates or ocean-going corvettes. As the MCM ships age and leave the fleet, the LCS should assume their
role. The would leave a post-MCM requirement for 16 to 21 additional small surface combatants. For this,
the Navy needs a simpler, less expensive alternative to the LCS.”
A potential key question for Congress concerns whether the U.S. Navy in coming years will be
large enough to adequately counter improved Chinese maritime A2/AD forces while also
adequately performing other missions of interest to U.S. policy makers around the world. Some
observers are concerned that a combination of growing Chinese naval capabilities and budget-
driven reductions in the size of the U.S. Navy could encourage Chinese military overconfidence
and demoralize U.S. allies and partners in the Pacific, and thereby make it harder for the United
States to defend its interests in the region.26 Potential oversight questions for Congress include the
following:
26 See, for example, Dan Blumenthal and Michael Mazza, “Asia Needs a Larger U.S. Defense Budget,” Wall Street
Journal, July 5, 2011; J. Randy Forbes, “Defence Cuts Imperil US Asia Role,” The Diplomat (http://the-diplomat.com),
October 26, 2011. See also Andrew Krepinevich, “Panetta’s Challenge,” Washington Post, July 15, 2011: 15; Dean
Cheng, Sea Power and the Chinese State: China’s Maritime Ambitions, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2576,
(continued...)
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• Under the Administration’s plans, will the Navy in coming years be large enough
to adequately counter improved Chinese maritime A2/AD forces while also
adequately performing other missions of interest to U.S. policy makers around
the world?
• What might be the political and security implications in the Asia-Pacific region
of a combination of growing Chinese naval capabilities and budget-driven
reductions in the size of the U.S. Navy?
• If the Navy is reduced in size and priority is given to maintaining Navy forces in
the Pacific, what will be the impact on Navy force levels in other parts of the
world, such as the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean region or the Mediterranean Sea,
and consequently on the Navy’s ability to adequately perform its missions in
those parts of the world?
• To what extent could the operational impacts of a reduction in Navy ship
numbers be mitigated through increased use of forward homeporting, multiple
crewing, and long-duration deployments with crew rotation (i.e., “Sea Swap”)?
How feasible are these options, and what would be their potential costs and
benefits?27
• Particularly in a situation of constrained DOD resources, if enough funding is
allocated to the Navy to permit the Navy in coming years to maintain a fleet of
306 ships including 11 aircraft carriers, how much would other DOD programs
need to be reduced, and what would be the operational implications of those
program reductions in terms of DOD’s overall ability to counter improved
Chinese military forces and perform other missions?28
One observer—the person who until recently was the Navy’s lead force-structure planner—stated
the following regarding the Navy’s approach to fleet design:
It is time to rethink how we will design the future Fleet in a way that rebalances
affordability, platform capability, and deployment processes. We must build it as a whole
instead of continuing to “let it happen” one platform requirements decision at a time....
Today the Navy operates about 50 different types of ships and aircraft with individual
design-service lives of 20 to 50 years. On average, about two classes of ship or aircraft
annually come up for a decision on replacement at the end of their service lives. Each of
these decisions, a multi-year joint bureaucratic process with dozens of participating
organizations, is made individually. Typically, as a starting point, the new platform must do
everything the old one did, except in the more challenging threat environment of the future.
All of the decision-making organizations generally advocate for the next-generation platform
to have the desired capabilities unmet by the old one—particularly since any additional unit
cost is not their bill. It is no surprise that this process leads to steadily increasing platform
and overall Fleet cost....
(...continued)
July 11, 2011, p. 10.
27 For further discussion of these options, see CRS Report RS21338, Navy Ship Deployments: New Approaches—
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
28 For further discussion, see CRS Report RL33153, China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy
Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
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The future Fleet is being designed ad hoc, one platform at a time, and we cannot afford this.
How can we change the trend toward an ever-smaller Fleet of ever-better platforms while
maintaining the capability superiority needed to execute our missions? It will take a top-
down design to provide a structure in which individual platform requirements can be shaped
and disciplined despite all of the pressures. We will have to consider distributing capabilities
to a greater extent across a force that is securely networked, at least within line of sight,
rather than putting as many as possible on each individual platform and continuing to drive
up its size and cost.
We will have to consider separating weapon magazines from the sensors that direct the
weapons rather than putting both on the same platform. Another option is increasing reliance
on deep-magazine directed energy systems, and on force-wide coordinated soft-kill and
counter-targeting techniques, rather than on engaging each threat with ever-larger and more
expensive kinetic weapons. We can also think about increasing reliance on penetrating high-
threat areas with longer-range weapons or with preprogrammed unmanned systems rather
than with manned platforms. Few of these options would rise to the top in the requirements
decision-making process for any individual platform. They only start to make sense when
considered and competed at a Fleet-wide level.
Developing an overall fleet design to structure and discipline individual platform
requirements is no small task. Simply constraining platform cost without dealing with how
capabilities might be delivered differently is not sufficient. This is not a once-and-done
process, as changes in threat and in our own technology options will never stop. But neither
can it be a process that changes the design in some fundamental way every year or two—it
will have to influence platform requirements for a long period of time to affect a significant
number of new platform designs.
We cannot afford to retire legacy platforms prematurely simply because they are not
optimized within our new Fleet design, which will take time to implement and have to be
done incrementally. Real and fundamental change in the roles, missions, and
interdependencies among platform types, and in the balance between manned and unmanned
and between platform and payload, is an inevitable outcome of a Fleet design process. That
is the point. Change is hard, and it will have to be authorized and directed by the Navy’s
leadership or risk not happening.
A number of ideas for a new Fleet design have been offered recently from outside the Navy’s
decision-making mainstream. However, all have had significant flaws, so they have not
received serious consideration. They have assumed things such as beyond line-of-sight
networking that has no survivable future in the face of adversary counter-space capability;
autonomy of unmanned vehicles in executing lethal missions that is beyond the projected
capability of software and U.S. rules of engagement to support; and the use of platforms too
small to be capable of global deployment and sustained sea-based operations, which is how
the U.S. Navy must deliver global naval power. The future Fleet design must be grounded in
technical and operational reality, and it has to come from inside the Navy system....
Developing a rich list of operationally-realistic options supported by rigorous analysis of cost
and feasibility is foundational. It could include:
• The use of a common large aviation-ship hull for Navy sea-control/power-projection air
wings and for Marine Corps vertical-raid/assault-air wings, reconfigurable between the two
missions between the deployments;
• Surface combatants with smaller vertical-launch magazines that can reload at sea from
logistic ships or remotely fire weapons carried in supplementary magazines on logistic ships;
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• Separate classes of surface combatants optimized for air defense or antisubmarine warfare
within a common hull type that can self-defend in peacetime but aggregate to fight
offensively in wartime;
• Tactical-combat aircraft that are optimized for endurance and carriage of long-range
weapons rather than for penetrating sophisticated defenses carrying short-range weapons;
• Large shore-launched unmanned undersea vehicles that take the place of submarines for
preprogrammed missions such as covert surveillance or mine-laying;
• Use of a common hull type for all of the large non-combatant ship missions such as
command ships, tenders, hospital ships, ground vehicle delivery, and logistics; and
• Elimination of support models that are based on wartime reliance on reach-back access to
unclassified cyber networks connected by vulnerable communications satellites or to an
indefensible global internet....
The Navy’s long-term force structure requirement is a 306-ship Fleet of the currently-
planned designs, of which about 120 (or 40 percent of the force) would be deployed day-to-
day. It would also be able to surge an additional 75 ships (another 25 percent) within two
months to meet warfighting capacity requirements. In other words, about 65 percent is
employed or rapidly employable.
This sounds good, but the reality is that 30 of these 120 deployed ships would be
permanently homeported overseas; 26 would be LCSs that use the rotation of their small
military crews to keep 50 percent of that class forward deployed; and 40 would be Military
Sealift Command support ships that use rotational civilian mariner crewing to keep the ships
deployed 75 percent of the time. The remaining 25 of the forward-deployed force will be
large and complex multibillion dollar warships with all-military crews, supported out of a
rotation base of 140 such ships.
In other words, we plan to buy and operate five of our most expensive ships to keep one
deployed. This is not an efficient way to operate. In times of reduced funding our design
must address ways to meet our deployment goals with a smaller rotation base while
preserving wartime surge capacity.
Many studies and trials have been done over the years on options for reducing the total
number of ships needed to sustain the Navy’s robust peacetime forward-deployed posture.
Increasing forward homeporting in other nations always comes up as the first choice. While
it is a good one, few countries beyond those that currently support this (Japan, Spain, Italy,
and Bahrain) are willing to tolerate a permanent new U.S. shore footprint. Building new
shore-support infrastructure in foreign countries to back this results in a large bill for
construction jobs outside the United States, which Congress normally finds unappetizing.
Using rotational crews to keep ships forward for extended periods without long deployments
for their sailors is an efficient option that works for ships with small crews like LCSs, legacy
mine-warfare ships, or Military Sealift Command support ships. Experiments in which this
has been done with military crews on large complex warships have not turned out well. This
was due both to the logistics of moving large crews overseas for turnovers and the difficulty
of maintaining exact configuration commonality within ships of a class so that a crew
arriving on a ship overseas has trained before deployment on an identical ship (or simulator)
at home. Conversions of ships from military manning to Military Sealift Command civilian
mariner crews that routinely rotate individual crewmembers to sustain ships forward are
limited by the law of war concerning what military actions civilians can perform, and there
are few legal options left for further expansion of this approach.
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What is left in the force-generation model of our current Fleet is a force of our most complex
warships—aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, and amphibious ships—operating with
permanently-assigned military crews in the “Fleet Readiness Program” cycle of maintain-
train-deploy with a deployed output of one in five. Future designs must address this model
and find ways to get more deployed time out of these expensive ships and crews—without
exceeding the current objective of having military crewmembers spend no more than 50
percent of their time away from homeport over a complete multi-year operating cycle. The
current limiting factor is the period required to train the crew as a team before deployment
following the inactivity and crew turnover of the shipyard maintenance period.
Naval aviation is steadily moving toward the increased use of high-fidelity single and multi-
aircraft simulation as a means of developing and sustaining operational proficiency with
reduced use of expensive live flying. These simulators are funded as part of the overall
fielding plan for the aircraft and were also built for the ballistic-missile submarine force to
support its Blue-Gold crew manning concept. There is no equivalent model or set of off-ship
simulators for major sections of the crews of conventional surface warships (other than the
LCS) for nuclear-aircraft carriers or for attack submarines. A Fleet design that bought such
simulation capability as part of its ship production programs—the way that aircraft programs
do—would have significant potential for improving operational output by reducing the time
to train for deployment after maintenance periods.
Today’s Fleet design is the product of many separate and disconnected decisions about the
required capabilities of 50 different types of ships and aircraft. While not ineffective, it is
definitely too expensive. The budget constraints facing the Navy for the next 20 years are not
matched by a projected reduction in the quantity or capability of forces that must be
delivered forward every day or surged forward in wartime.
The only way to meet these demands within available resources is to develop a design that
provides a structure within which the capabilities of future platforms can be shaped to meet
the Fleet’s missions efficiently as an overall force. Doing this will require a systems-level
approach to defining what it must be able to do, and will mean abandoning some cherished
traditions of what each type of platform should do. The alternative is a Navy no longer large
or capable enough to do the nation’s business.29
Affordability of 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan
Another potential oversight issue for Congress concerns the prospective affordability of the
Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan. In assessing the prospective affordability of the 30-year plan,
key factors that Congress may consider include estimated ship procurement costs and future
shipbuilding funding levels. Each of these is discussed below.
Estimated Ship Procurement Costs
If one or more Navy ship designs turn out to be more expensive to build than the Navy estimates,
then the projected funding levels shown in the 30-year shipbuilding plan will not be sufficient to
procure all the ships shown in the plan. Ship designs that can be viewed as posing a risk of being
more expensive to build than the Navy estimates include Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft
carriers, Ohio-replacement (SSBNX) class ballistic missile submarines, the Flight III version of
the DDG-51 destroyer, the TAO(X) oiler, and the LX(R) amphibious ship.
29 Arthur H. Barber, “Rethinking The Future Fleet,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 2014: 48-52.
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In recent years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that certain Navy ships
would be more expensive to procure than the Navy estimates, and consequently that the Navy’s
30-year shipbuilding plan would cost more to implement than the Navy has estimated. In its
October 2013 report on the cost of the FY2014 30-year shipbuilding plan, the CBO estimated that
the plan would cost an average of $19.3 billion per year in constant FY2013 dollars to implement,
or about 15% more than the Navy estimated. CBO’s estimate is about 6% higher than the Navy’s
estimate for the first 10 years of the plan, about 14% higher than the Navy’s estimate for the
second 10 years of the plan, and about 26% higher than the Navy’s estimate for the final 10 years
of the plan.30 Some of the difference between CBO’s estimate and the Navy’s estimate,
particularly in the latter years of the plan, is due to a difference between CBO and the Navy in
how to treat inflation in Navy shipbuilding.
The Navy delivered its narrative report on the FY2015 30-year shipbuilding plan to CRS on July
3, 2014. The Navy estimates in the report that the plan would cost an average of about $16.7
billion per year in constant FY2014 dollars to implement. The Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) is now preparing its own estimate of the cost to implement the plan; this estimate will be
made available later this year. CBO’s estimates of the cost to implement past annual versions of
the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan have been higher than the Navy’s estimates. Table 8
summarizes the Navy and CBO estimates of the FY2014 and FY2015 30-year shipbuilding plans.
Table 8. Navy and CBO Estimates of Cost of FY2014 and FY2015 30-Year
Shipbuilding Plans
Funding for new-construction ships, in billions of constant FY2013 or FY2014 dollars
First 10 years of
Middle 10 years of
Final 10 years of
Entire 30 years of
the plan
the plan
the plan
the plan
FY2014 30-year (FY2014-FY2043) plan (in constant FY2013 dollars)
Navy estimate
15.4
19.8
15.2
16.8
CBO estimate
16.3
22.6
19.1
19.3
% difference
6% 14% 26% 15%
between Navy and
CBO estimates
FY2015 30-year (FY2015-FY2044) plan (in constant FY2014 dollars)
Navy estimate
~15.7
~19.7
~14.6
~16.7
CBO estimate
Not yet available—CBO is preparing its estimate
% difference
Not yet available—CBO is preparing its estimate
between Navy and
CBO estimates
Source: For FY2014 30-year plan: Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2014
Shipbuilding Plan, October 2013, Table 3 (page 13). For FY2015 30-year plan: Report to Congress on the Annual
Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY2015, p. 8.
30 Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2014 Shipbuilding Plan, October 2013, Table 3
(page 13).
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Future Shipbuilding Funding Levels
It has been known for some time that implementing the 30-year shipbuilding plan would require
shipbuilding budgets in coming years that are considerably greater than those of recent years, and
that funding requirements for the Ohio-replacement (SSBN[X]) ballistic missile submarine
program will put particular pressure on the shipbuilding budget during the middle years of the 30-
year plan. The Navy’s report on the FY2015 30-year plan states:
Beginning in FY2020 and running through the end of the 30-year plan horizon, the plan
requires an average annual investment of about $17.2B [billion] (FY14$) [i.e., in constant
FY2014 dollars] to finance, which is ~$4B/year more than our historical average annual
investment of ~$13B/yr. In particular, for the period while we are procuring the OHIO
Replacement (OR) SSBN (essentially FY[20]25-FY[20]34), the Navy will have to provide
an average of $19.7B annually with the peak year in FY[20]32 at slightly more than $24B.
Even if the OHIO Replacement Program (ORP) is removed from the [required] resource total
[by funding the program through a different part of the defense budget], the average funding
required beginning in FY2020 is ~$14-15B/yr to build the FSA [Force Structure
Assessment] force [i.e., the planned 306-ship fleet]....
While the force structure presented [in this report] describes a battle force that meets the
requirements of the National Security Strategy and the 2014 QDR [Quadrennial Defense
Review]; it requires funding at an unsustainable level, particularly between FY[20]25 and
FY[20]34... The average cost of this plan during the period in which the DON [Department
of the Navy] is procuring OR SSBN[s] (~$19.7B/year [during] FY2025-[FY]2034) cannot be
accommodated by the Navy from existing resources—particularly if DOD is required to be
funded at the BCA [Budget Control Act] levels....
The DON can only afford the SSBN procurement costs with significant increases in our
[budget] top-line or by having the SSBN funded from sources that do not result in any
reductions to the DON’s current resourcing level....
If the DON is unable to sustain the average annual shipbuilding budgets of $19.7 billion over
the course of the mid-term planning period, which is unlikely to be the case,31 the battle force
will fall far short of meeting the QDR requirements.32
In assessing the Navy’s ability to reach the higher annual shipbuilding funding levels described
above, one perspective is to note that doing so would require the shipbuilding budget to be
increased by 30% to 50% from levels in recent years. In a context of constraints on defense
spending and competing demands for defense dollars, this perspective can make the goal of
increasing the shipbuilding budget to these levels appear daunting.
Another perspective is to note that the additional annual funding needed (roughly $4 billion to
$6.7 billion) equates to roughly 0.8% to 1.3% of a defense budget of $521 billion per year (the
Budget Control Act figure for defense spending FY2015). Some observers, noting the U.S.
strategic rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific region, have advocated shifting a greater share of
the DOD budget to the Navy and Air Force, on the grounds that the Asia-Pacific region is
31 This can be read as a double negative—that it is unlikely the Navy will be unable to sustain average annual
shipbuilding budgets at this level. The Navy’s intent appears to be to state that it is unlikely the Navy will be able to do
this.
32 Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY2015, June 2014, pp. 5,
6, 7, 9.
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primarily a maritime and aerospace theater for DOD. In discussing the idea of shifting a greater
share of the DOD budget to the Navy and Air Force, some of these observers refer to breaking the
so-called “one-third, one-third, one-third” division of resources among the three military
departments—a shorthand term sometimes used to refer to the more-or-less stable division of
resources between the three military departments that existed for the three decades between the
end of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War in 1973 and the start of the Iraq War in 2003.33 In a
context of breaking the “one-third, one-third, one-third” allocation with an aim of better aligning
defense spending with the strategic rebalancing, shifting 0.8% to 1.3% of the defense budget into
the Navy’s shipbuilding account would appear to be quite feasible.
More broadly, if defense spending were to remain constrained to the revised cap levels in the
Budget Control Act, then fully funding the Department of the Navy’s total budget at the levels
shown in the current Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) would require increasing the Department
of the Navy’s share of the non-Defense-Wide part of the DOD budget to about 41%, compared to
about 36% in the FY2014 budget and an average of about 37% for the three-decade period
between the Vietnam and Iraq wars.34 While shifting 4% or 5% of DOD’s budget to the
Department of the Navy would be a more ambitious reallocation than shifting 0.8% to 1.3% of
the DOD budget to the Navy’s shipbuilding account, similarly large reallocations have occurred
in the past.35
Legislative Activity for FY2015
FY2015 Funding Request
The Navy’s proposed FY2015 budget requests funding for the procurement of seven new battle
force ships (i.e., ships that count against the Navy’s goal for achieving and maintaining a fleet of
33 The “one-third, one-third, one-third” terminology, though convenient, is not entirely accurate—the military
departments’ shares of the DOD budget, while more or less stable during this period, were not exactly one-third each:
the average share for the Department of the Army was about 26%, the average share for the Department of the Navy
(which includes both the Navy and Marine Corps) was about 32%, the average share for the Department of the Air
Force was about 30%, and the average share for Defense-Wide (the fourth major category of DOD spending) was about
12%. Excluding the Defense-Wide category, which has grown over time, the shares for the three military departments
of the remainder of DOD’s budget during this period become about 29% for the Department of the Army, about 37%
for the Department of the Navy, and about 34% for the Department of the Air Force.
34 Since the Defense-Wide portion of the budget has grown from just a few percent in the 1950s and 1960s to about
15% in more recent years, including the Defense-Wide category of spending in the calculation can lead to military
department shares of the budget in the 1950s and 1960s that are somewhat more elevated compared to those in more
recent years, making it more complex to compare the military departments’ shares across the entire period of time since
the end of the World War II. For this reason, military department shares of the DOD budget cited in this statement are
calculated after excluding the Defense-Wide category. The points made in this statement, however, can still made on
the basis of a calculation that includes the Defense-Wide category.
35 For example, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, reflecting a U.S. defense strategy at the time that placed a strong
reliance on the deterrent value of nuclear weapons, the Department of the Air Force’s share of the non-Defense-Wide
DOD budget increased by several percentage points. The Department of the Air Force’s share averaged about 45% for
the 10-year period FY1956-FY1965, and peaked at more than 47% in FY1957-FY1959. As another example, for the
11-year period FY2003-FY2013, as a consequence of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Department of
the Army’s share of the non-Defense-Wide DOD budget increased by roughly 10 percentage points. The Department of
the Army’s share during this period averaged about 39%, and peaked at more than 43% in FY2008. U.S. combat
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan during this period reflected the implementation of U.S. national strategy as
interpreted by policy makers during those years.
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306 ships). The seven ships include two Virginia-class attack submarines, two DDG-51 class
Aegis destroyers, and three Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs). The Navy’s proposed FY2015
shipbuilding budget also requests funding for ships that have been procured in prior fiscal years,
and ships that are to be procured in future fiscal years.
CRS Reports Tracking Legislation on Specific Navy Shipbuilding
Programs
Detailed coverage of legislative activity on certain Navy shipbuilding programs (including
funding levels, legislative provisions, and report language) can be found in the following CRS
reports:
• CRS Report RS20643, Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
• This report also covers the issue of funding for a refueling complex overhaul
(RCOH) for the aircraft carrier George Washington (CVN-73).
• CRS Report R41129, Navy Ohio Replacement (SSBN[X]) Ballistic Missile
Submarine Program: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
• CRS Report RL32418, Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine
Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
• CRS Report RL32109, Navy DDG-51 and DDG-1000 Destroyer Programs:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
• CRS Report RL33741, Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Background
and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
• CRS Report R43543, Navy LX(R) Amphibious Ship Program: Background and
Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
• This report also covers the issue of whether to procure an additional San
Antonio (LPD-17) class amphibious ship.
• CRS Report R43546, Navy TAO(X) Oiler Shipbuilding Program: Background
and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
• This report also covers the Navy’s proposal, made as part of its FY2015
budget submission, to disestablish the National Defense Sealift Fund
(NDSF).
Individual Navy shipbuilding programs that are not covered in detail in the above reports are
covered in detail below.
FY2015 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4435/S. 2410)
House (Committee Report)
The House Armed Services Committee, in its report (H.Rept. 113-446 of May 13, 2014) on H.R.
4435, recommends the following changes to the Navy’s proposed FY2015 shipbuilding programs:
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• an addition of $483.6 million for a refueling complex overhaul (RCOH) of the
aircraft carrier George Washington (CVN-73);
• a reduction of $54 million to the amount requested for the DDG-1000 destroyer
program;
• a reduction of one ship and $450 million to the quantity and funding amount
requested for procurement of LCSs—the recommendation is to procure two
LCSs in FY2015, rather than three;
• an addition of $100 million in advance procurement (AP) funding for the
procurement of an LCS in a future fiscal year;
• an addition of $800 million for the procurement of an additional LPD-17 class
amphibious ship; and
• a reduction of $220 million to the amount requested for the Moored Training
Ship (MTS) program, which is a program to convert two older Los Angeles
(SSN-688) class attack submarines into moored training platforms for sailors
who are learning to use nuclear propulsion plants. (Pages 395-396.)
Section 124 of H.R. 4435 states:
SEC. 124. LIMITATION ON AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS FOR MOORED TRAINING
SHIP PROGRAM.
Of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or otherwise made available for fiscal
year 2015 for shipbuilding and construction, Navy, for design, conversion, modification, or
construction relating to the moored training ship program of the Navy, not more than 80
percent may be obligated or expended until a period of 30 days has elapsed following the
date on which the Secretary of Defense certifies to the congressional defense committees
that—
(1) the Chairman of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council has reviewed and approved
the need for two additional moored training ships;
(2) the Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation has reviewed and certified the
cost estimates of the moored training ship program; and
(3) the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics has reviewed
and approved the budget, schedule, and construction plans for such two additional moored
training ships.
Regarding the Moored Training Ship Program addressed in the above provision, H.Rept. 113-446
states:
Moored Training Ship
The budget request contained $801.7 million in Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy, for the
Moored Training Ship program.
The committee notes that the Moored Training Ship program is intended to convert two
decommissioned nuclear attack submarines into training platforms for nuclear propulsion
crew members. The committee also notes that this program has experienced a $556.8 million
cost overrun for the two conversions compared to fiscal year 2014 budget projections, and
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that this represents an 34 percent cost increase. The committee further notes that $229.7
million of this cost increase is included in the fiscal year 2015 budget request. While the
committee understands that the Moored Training Ship program is not a formal acquisition
program, the committee remains concerned that the 34 percent cost increase would be
significantly over the critical cost growth threshold for major defense acquisition programs,
established pursuant to section 2433, title 10, United States Code, also known as a “Nunn-
McCurdy breach”. As a result, elsewhere in this Act, the committee includes a provision that
would require a review to be provided to Congress similar to that required for a “Nunn-
McCurdy breach”.
The committee recommends $572.0 million, a decrease of $229.7 million, in shipbuilding
and conversion, Navy, for the Moored Training Ship program. (Page 30)
Section 1021 of H.R. 4435 as reported states:
SEC. 1021. DEFINITION OF COMBATANT AND SUPPORT VESSEL FOR PURPOSES
OF THE ANNUAL PLAN AND CERTIFICATION RELATING TO BUDGETING FOR
CONSTRUCTION OF NAVAL VESSELS.
Section 231(f) of title 10, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following
new paragraph:
`(4) The term `combatant and support vessel’ means any commissioned ship built or armed
for naval combat or any naval ship designed to provide support to combatant ships and other
naval operations. Such term does not include patrol coastal ships, non-commissioned
combatant craft specifically designed for combat roles, or ships that are designated for
potential mobilization.’.
Section 1026 of H.R. 4435 as reported states:
SEC. 1026. AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS FOR RETIREMENT OR INACTIVATION OF
TICONDEROGA CLASS CRUISERS OR DOCK LANDING SHIPS.
(a) Limitation on the Availability of Funds- Except as otherwise provided in this section,
none of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or otherwise made available for
the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2015 may be obligated or expended to retire,
prepare to retire, inactivate, or place in storage a cruiser or dock landing ship.
(b) Cruiser Upgrades- As provided by section 8107 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act,
2014 (P.L. 113-76), the Secretary of the Navy shall begin the upgrade of two cruisers during
fiscal year 2015, including—
(1) hull, mechanical, and electrical upgrades; and
(2) combat systems modernizations.
Regarding the cruisers and amphibious ships addressed in the above provision, H.Rept. 113-446
states:
Phased Modernization of Certain Navy Ships
In March 2014, the Navy proposed to reduce its operational force structure of Ticonderoga-
class cruisers and amphibious dock landing ships (LSD). The Navy plans to take 14 ships out
of their normal deployment rotations and place them in long-term phased modernization and
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maintenance to extend the expected service life of the ships. According to the Navy, this plan
will allow it to retain the 11 cruisers and 3 amphibious ships through the 2030s and into the
2040s.
The committee is concerned about the Navy’s plan to reduce its battle force structure by 14
ships, especially in light of shortfalls in the force structure necessary to meet the
requirements of the National Military Strategy. Additionally, the committee notes that while
the Navy places Military Sealift Command ships in reduced operating status, or ROS, on a
regular basis, surface combatant and amphibious ships are more complex and their crews
need more training before they can be certified as being ready for deployment and major
combat operations. Further, the Navy states it has not reactivated any surface combatant
ships from long-term protective storage since the 1980s.
Therefore, the committee directs the Comptroller General of the United States to report to the
congressional defense committees by March 1, 2015, on the extent to which the Navy has
identified:
(1) The potential costs and cost savings associated with the Navy’s phased modernization
plan for the 11 cruisers and 3 LSDs;
(2) The operational benefits and risks associated with this long-term plan; and
(3) The costs, savings, benefits, and risks of any alternate plans that were considered before
putting forth the Navy’s current plan. (Pages 210-211)
H.Rept. 113-446 also states:
Joint High Speed Vessel
The committee is aware of the premium that the Department of Defense places on the ability
of U.S. military forces to deploy quickly to a full spectrum of engagements. In addition, the
Department values the ability of U.S. forces to debark and embark in a wide range of port
environments, from modern to austere.
The committee notes that the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), crewed by Military Sealift
Command mariners, has demonstrated the ability to transport military forces, as well as
humanitarian relief personnel and materiel, in a manner that is responsive, deployable, agile,
versatile, and sustainable. The USNS Spearhead (JHSV–1) is currently deployed to the U.S.
6th Fleet area of responsibility.
The JHSV is designed to transport 600 short tons of military cargo 1,200 nautical miles at an
average speed of 35 knots in sea state 3. JHSVs support Navy Expeditionary Combat
Command and riverine forces, theater cooperating missions, Seabees, and Marine Corps and
Army transportation. The original procurement objective for the JHSV was 18 ships. This
procurement number was lowered to 10 JHSVs as part of the budget request for fiscal year
2013.
The committee notes that the JHSV has the ability to support multiple branches of the
military services, provide high-speed intra-theater sealift, operate in littoral environments
and austere port environments, and support humanitarian and disaster relief activities. The
committee also notes that the ship’s construction line is still operational. For these reasons,
the committee directs the Secretary of the Navy to submit a report to the congressional
defense committees by April 1, 2015, on the operational benefits and cost savings associated
with continuing to procure JHSVs. The report should specifically address the costs and
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benefits of buying the eight additional JHSVs that were originally part of the program. (Page
29)
H.Rept. 113-446 also states:
Mobile Landing Platform Afloat Forward Staging Base
The committee notes that the most recent 30-year shipbuilding plan projects a requirement
for a third Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) variant
ship in fiscal year 2017. Full funding for the second MLP AFSB ship was provided in fiscal
year 2014. No advance procurement funds for the third MLP AFSB ship are currently
programmed in either fiscal year 2015 or fiscal year 2016. Considering the expanded
requirement for the MLP AFSB variant ships and the success of the ongoing shipbuilding
program, the committee is concerned that a 3-year procurement gap between ships will
increase costs, impact the industrial base, and delay delivery of important capabilities.
Therefore, the committee encourages the Secretary of the Navy to explore possible
approaches to minimize a production break between ships, including advance procurement
funding, for the third AFSB ship. (Page 30)
H.Rept. 113-446 also states:
Comptroller General Review of Forward Deployed Naval Forces and Associated
Sustainment Issues
Forward presence is critical to the Navy’s goals of building partnerships, deterring
aggression without escalation, defusing threats, and containing conflict without regional
disruption. Naval forces provide forward presence through a combination of rotational
deployments from the United States, Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) in Japan,
Guam, the Kingdom of Spain, and the Italian Republic, and forward stationing ships in
places such as the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Republic of Singapore, and Diego Garcia. The
Navy’s ability to implement these concepts depends on U.S. bases and strategic partnerships
overseas that provide places where forces can rest, repair, refuel, and resupply. In the FDNF
construct, the ships, crews and families all reside in the host nation. This construct is in
contrast to forward stationing, where the ship’s families reside in the United States and the
crew rotates to the ship’s overseas location for deployment.
The committee seeks a more detailed understanding of the Navy’s decision-making process
to designate ships to be either FDNF or forward stationed and the relative costs and benefits
of each approach. The committee directs the Comptroller General of the United States to
provide a report to the congressional defense committees by February 27, 2015. The report
should include a review and analysis of:
(1) The Navy’s process for determining the homeport locations of naval vessels, including
FDNF;
(2) The Navy’s process for stationing naval vessels outside the United States;
(3) How the Navy calculates deployment costs of vessels homeported inside and outside the
United States;
(4) The extent to which the Navy has utilized rotational crewing to meet forward presence
requirements;
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(5) The operational availability achieved by rotational crewing, the savings achieved, and the
limitations associated with directed rotational crewing;
(6) The operational support and sustainment effects of deploying U.S.-based vessels to a
forward operating station as opposed to homeporting vessels outside the United States,
including costs of complying with section 7310 of title 10, United States Code, maintenance
requirements;
(7) The infrastructure requirements, as well as host-nation acceptance requirements to ensure
the assets are received overseas; and
(8) Any other issue that the Comptroller General determines appropriate. (Pages 111-112)
H.Rept. 113-446 also states:
Force Structure Assessment
The committee notes that the Secretary of the Navy conducted a Force Structure Assessment
in 2012 that determined the proposed composition of Navy surface and subsurface vessels.
This latest Force Structure Assessment determined that an overall Navy fleet of 306 ships
would be necessary to support the overall defense strategy. Since the release of the 2012
Force Structure Assessment, the Secretary of Defense released the 2014 Quadrennial
Defense Review which determined, in part, the requirement for 11 aircraft carriers and 92
large surface combatants. Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Navy to
update the most recent Force Structure Assessment and to submit it to the congressional
defense committees by March 1, 2015. (Pages 205-206)
House (Floor Action)
On May 21, 2014, as part of its consideration of H.R. 4435, the House agreed to by voice vote
H.Amdt. 682, an en bloc amendment consisting of several amendments printed in H.Rept. 113-
460 of May 21 (legislative day, May 20), 2014, a report providing for further consideration of
H.R. 4435. One of these was amendment number 161 from H.Rept. 113-60, which increased by
$20 million the amount authorized for the Defense Health Program and identified $20 million in
offsets, including a $10 million reduction from the amounted authorized for the Shipbuilding and
Conversion, Navy (SCN) account.
Senate
The Senate Armed Services Committee, in its report (S.Rept. 113-176 of June 2, 2014) on S.
2410, recommends the following changes to the Navy’s proposed FY2015 shipbuilding programs:
• a transfer from the Operation and Maintenance, Navy (OMN) account to the
Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy (SCN) account of the Navy’s request for $46
million in FY2015 funding for defueling the aircraft carrier George Washington
(CVN-73), so as to support a refueling complex overhaul (RCOH) for that ship;
and
• a transfer from the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Navy (RDTEN)
account to the SCN account of the Navy’s request for $45 million in FY2015
funding for a service life extension program (SLEP) for the Navy’s air-cushioned
landing craft (LCAC). (Pages 323-324.)
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Section 1022 of S. 2410 as reported states:
SEC. 1022. AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS FOR RETIREMENT OR INACTIVATION OF
TICONDEROGA CLASS CRUISERS OR DOCK LANDING SHIPS.
(a) Limitation on Availability of Funds-
(1) IN GENERAL- Except as otherwise provided in this section, none of the funds
authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available for the Department of Defense by
this Act or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 (P.L. 113-66) may
be obligated or expended to retire, prepare to retire, inactivate, or place in storage a cruiser or
dock landing ship.
(2) USE OF SMOSF FUNDS- Funds in the Ship, Modernization, Operations, and
Sustainment Fund (SMOSF) may be used only for 11 Ticonderoga-class cruisers (CG 63
through CG 73) and 3 dock landing ships (LSD 41, LSD 42, and LSD 46). The Secretary of
the Navy may use such funds only to man, operate, equip, sustain, and modernize such
vessels.
(b) Phased Modernization of Ticonderoga Class Cruisers and Dock Landing Ships- The
Secretary of the Navy shall retain 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers (CGs) and 12 Whidbey
Island/Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ships (LSDs) until the end of their expected service
lives, as follows:
(1) OPERATIONAL FORCES- The naval combat forces of the Navy shall include not less
than 11 operational cruisers (CG 52 through CG 62) and 11 operational dock landing ships
(all members of the LSD 41 class, except LSD 41, LSD, 42 and LSD 46). For purposes of
this paragraph, a cruiser or dock landing ship is operational if such vessel is available for
worldwide deployment other than during routine or scheduled maintenance or repair.
(2) PHASED MODERNIZATION- The Secretary may conduct phased modernization of the
cruisers and dock landing ships for which funds in the Ship, Modernization, Operations, and
Sustainment Fund are authorized to be available pursuant to subsection (a)(2). During a
phased modernization period, the Secretary may reduce manning on such vessels to the
minimal level necessary to ensure the safety and security of such vessels and to retain critical
skills.
(3) END OF SERVICE AND TRANSITION FROM PHASED MODERNIZATION TO
OPERATIONAL FORCES- Cruisers covered by paragraph (1) may only be
decommissioned when replaced by one of the cruisers for which the Navy has conducted a
phased modernization using funds in the Ship, Modernization, Operations, and Sustainment
Fund as described in paragraph (2). After being reintroduced into the operational fleet, the
cruisers modernized as described in paragraph (2) may be decommissioned individually
upon reaching the end of their expected service life, excluding time spent in a phased
modernization status under paragraph (2). After being reintroduced into the operational fleet,
the dock landing ships modernized as described in paragraph (2) may be decommissioned
upon reaching the end of their expected service life, excluded time spent in a phased
modernization status under paragraph (2).
(c) Requirements and Limitations on Phased Modernization-
(1) REQUIREMENTS- During the period of phased modernization under subsection (b)(2)
of the vessels specified in subsection (a)(2), the Secretary of the Navy shall—
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(A) continue to maintain the vessels in a manner that will ensure the ability of the vessels to
reenter the operational fleet;
(B) conduct planning activities to ensure scheduled and deferred maintenance and
modernization work items are identified and included in maintenance availability work
packages;
(C) conduct hull, mechanical, and electrical (HM&E) and combat system modernization
necessary to achieve a service life of 40 years;
(D) in the case of the cruisers, schedule completion of maintenance and modernization,
including required testing and crew training, to replace on a one-for-one basis, active cruisers
that will be decommissioned upon reaching the end of their expected service life;
(E) ensure adequate funds are available to execute phased modernization activities for all the
vessels.
(2) LIMITATIONS- During the period of phased modernization under subsection (b)(2) of
the vessels specified in subsection (a)(2), the Secretary may not—
(A) permit removal or cannibalization of equipment or systems to support operational
vessels, other than—
(i) rotatable pool equipment; and
(ii) equipment or systems necessary to support urgent operational requirements (but only
with the approval of the Secretary of Defense); or
(B) make any irreversible modifications that will prohibit the vessel from reentering the
operational fleet.
(d) Authority To Enter Into Economic Order Quantity Contracts- The Secretary of the Navy
may enter into a so-called `economic order quantity’ contracts with private shipyards for ship
maintenance and modernization, and with private industry for equipment procurement for the
phased modernization under subsection (b)(2) of the vessels specified in subsection (a)(2).
(e) Reports-
(1) IN GENERAL- At the same time as the submittal to Congress of the budget of the
President under section 1105 of title 31, United States, for each fiscal year in which activities
under the phased modernization of vessels will be carried out under this section, the
Secretary of the Navy shall submit to the congressional defense committees a written report
on the status of the phased modernization of vessels under this section.
(2) ELEMENTS- Each report under this subsection shall include the following:
(A) The status of phased modernization efforts, including availability schedules, equipment
procurement schedules, and by-fiscal year funding requirements.
(B) The readiness, and operational and manning status of each vessel to be undergoing
phased modernization under this section during the fiscal year covered by such report.
(C) The current material condition assessment for each such vessel.
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(D) A list of rotatable pool equipment that is identified across the whole class of cruisers to
support operations on a continuing basis.
(E) A list of equipment, other than rotatable pool equipment and components incidental to
performing maintenance, removed from each such vessel, including a justification for the
removal, the disposition of the equipment, and plan for restoration of the equipment.
(F) A detailed plan for obligations and expenditures by vessel for the fiscal year beginning in
the year of such report, and projections of obligations by vessel by fiscal year for the
remaining time a vessel is in the phased modernization program.
(G) A statement of the funding required during the fiscal year beginning in the year of such
report to ensure the Ship, Modernization, Operations, and Sustainment Fund account has
adequate resources to execute the plan under subparagraph (F) in the execution fiscal year
and the following fiscal year.
(3) NOTICE ON VARIANCE FROM PLAN- Not later than 30 days before executing any
material deviation from a plan under paragraph (2)(F) for a fiscal year, the Secretary shall
notify the congressional defense committees in writing of such deviation from the plan.
(f) Repeal of Superseded Limitation- Section 1023 of the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2014 (127 Stat. 846) is repealed.
Regarding Section 1022, S.Rept. 113-176 states:
Availability of funds for retirement or inactivation of Ticonderoga class cruisers or
dock landing ships (sec. 1022)
The committee recommends a provision that would establish rules under which the Navy
could use resources in the Ship, Modernization, Operations, and Sustainment Fund (SMOSF)
to implement a plan to: (1) Retain 11 Ticonderoga-class cruisers and 9 Whidbey Island-class
and Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ships in active service; (2) Temporarily inactivate 11
Ticonderoga-class cruisers and 3 Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships; (3) Modernize
the inactivated ships during the period of their inactivation; and (4) Reactivate those ships to
replace cruisers and dock landing ships retiring at the end of their expected service lives.
The provision would require that the Secretary of the Navy retain the cruisers and dock
landing ships until the end of their ex pected service lives, and use SMOSF only to sustain
and modernize the vessels.
The provision would also require the Secretary of the Navy to submit an annual report with
the budget request. The report would describe the status of the SMOSF, including specific
financial information, such as starting and ending fiscal year corpus balances, providing a
detailed obligation and expenditure plan by vessel, and including information detailing all
transfers into and out of the SMOSF by appropriation account.
The committee further directs the Secretary to ensure that the annual budget justification
material for the SMOSF include detailed information at the vessel level. In addition, the
committee directs the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to provide execution reports
for the SMOSF that treats each vessel like a line item within the SMOSF. (Pages 165-166)
S.Rept. 113-176 also states:
Report on the Navy’s shipbuilding industrial base
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In testimony before the Seapower Subcommittee of this committee, the Assistant Secretary
of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition expressed concern about the
fragility of the Navy’s shipbuilding industrial base. Other Navy officials, including the
Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations have expressed similar concerns.
The committee shares these concerns and requests the Secretary of the Navy, in conjunction
with the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology, and Logistics, provide a
report on the state of the Navy’s shipbuilding industrial base not later than February 1, 2015.
The report should contain the following:
(1) A comparison of shipyard capacities and capabilities with projected shipbuilding
workloads, and challenges this may produce in coming years in terms of capacity utilization
and preservation of key design and construction skills.
(2) Investments the shipyards have made in recent years to modernize their production
facilities and to recruit, train, and retain their workers, and any challenges the shipyards may
face in doing this in coming years.
(3) Investments the shipyards could make to achieve cost reductions on Navy programs or to
position the yards to survive a number of years on reduced Navy orders.
(4) The shipyards’ construction processes and methods, and how these compare to best
practices in shipyards around the world.
(5) The prospects, by ship type, for using competition in the design and construction of Navy
ships in coming years.
(6) A comparison of supplier capacities and capabilities with projected shipbuilding
workloads, and challenges this may produce in coming years in terms of capacity utilization
and preservation of key suppliers.
(7) A comparison of shipbuilding research and development investments with projected
shipbuilding workloads, and any challenges that deficiencies in investment may produce in
future years in utilizing capacity, preserving of key skills, and continuing innovation.
(8) An analysis of the risks to the shipbuilding industrial base in the Navy’s shipbuilding
plan in the 2015 future years defense program, and the risks to the industrial base if Congress
does not amend the Budget Control Act to increase budget levels for the Department of
Defense before fiscal year 2016.
(9) A comprehensive funding section that includes:
(a) An itemized listing of funds budgeted for support of the shipbuilding industrial base.
This is to include all applicable Navy and Defense-wide appropriations. Detail must be by
fiscal year at the Appropriation, line item/program element-project level with a description of
the effort. Detail should be provided over the future years defense program and include up to
10 years of prior fiscal year actuals. This detailed listing is to specifically include funding
contained in current shipbuilding programs (detail design/plans), as well as the research and
development funding for preliminary and contract design program elements, and any
applicable science and technology funding, as well as applicable funding from the Industrial
Preparedness and Manufacturing Technology programs.
(b) Any recommendations in the report for additional funding should be identified at the
same level of detail as described in the subsection above.
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(c) The report funding summary should also provide information on applicable efforts
from other related agencies, such as the Department of Transportation, the Maritime
Administration, and the Coast Guard. (Pages 31-32)
FY2015 DOD Appropriations Act (H.R. 4870)
House
The House Appropriations Committee, in its report (H.Rept. 113-473 of June 13, 2014) on H.R.
4870, recommends the following changes to the Navy’s proposed FY2015 shipbuilding programs:
• a reduction of $10.6 million to the amount requested for procurement funding for
the CVN-78 aircraft carrier program;
• a reduction of $46.1 million to the amount requested for procurement funding for
the Virginia-class attack submarine program;
• a reduction of $28.5 million to the amount request for advance procurement (AP)
funding for the Virginia-class attack submarine program;
• an addition of $491.1 million for a refueling complex overhaul (RCOH) of the
aircraft carrier George Washington (CVN-73);
• a reduction of $15.5 million to the amount requested for procurement for the
DDG-51 destroyer program;
• a reduction of one ship and $475.7 million to the quantity and funding amount
requested for procurement of LCSs—the recommendation is to procure two
LCSs in FY2015, rather than three;
• a reduction of $4.6 million to the amount requested for the JHSV program; and
• a reduction of $54.3 million to the amount requested for outfitting of ships.
(Pages 163 and 164.)
Section 8105 of the bill as reported states:
Sec. 8105. There is appropriated $540,000,000 for the `Ship Modernization, Operations and
Sustainment Fund’, to remain available until September 30, 2021: Provided, That the
Secretary of the Navy shall transfer funds from the `Ship Modernization, Operations and
Sustainment Fund’ to appropriations for military personnel; operation and maintenance;
research, development, test and evaluation; and procurement, only for the purposes of
manning, operating, sustaining, equipping and modernizing the Ticonderoga-class guided
missile cruisers CG-63, CG-64, CG-65, CG-66, CG-67, CG-68, CG-69, CG-70, CG-71, CG-
72, CG-73, and the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships LSD-41, LSD-42, and LSD-46:
Provided further, That funds transferred shall be merged with and be available for the same
purposes and for the same time period as the appropriation to which they are transferred:
Provided further, That the transfer authority provided herein shall be in addition to any other
transfer authority available to the Department of Defense: Provided further, That the
Secretary of the Navy shall, not less than 30 days prior to making any transfer from the `Ship
Modernization, Operations and Sustainment Fund’, notify the congressional defense
committees in writing of the details of such transfer: Provided further, That the Secretary of
the Navy shall transfer and obligate funds from the `Ship Modernization, Operations and
Sustainment Fund’ for modernization of not more than two Ticonderoga-class guided missile
cruisers as detailed above in fiscal year 2015: Provided further, That no more than six
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Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers shall be in a phased modernization at any time:
Provided further, That the Secretary of the Navy shall contract for the required
modernization equipment in the year prior to inducting a Ticonderoga-class cruiser for
modernization: Provided further, That the prohibition in section 2244a(a) of title 10, United
States Code, shall not apply to the use of any funds transferred pursuant to this section.
Regarding Section 8105, H.Rept. 113-473 states:
CRUISER MODERNIZATION
The Committee is pleased that the budget request did not propose to retire seven
Ticonderoga Class Guided Missile Cruisers as had been proposed for the last two years.
These cruisers have many years of additional service life remaining and with the Navy
struggling to reach and maintain its requisite fleet size of 306 ships, retiring these valuable
assets early does not make sense. However, the Committee was disappointed that the most
recent Navy proposal included a plan to lay-up eleven of these ships for an average of nine
years, starting in fiscal year 2015. The Committee is concerned that this long term lay-up
will lead to decommissioning some or all of these cruisers in the near future. While the
Committee understands the rationale for the proposal, there is likely a more reasonable
middle ground between continuing to operate the ships and decommissioning the ships.
Therefore, the Committee agrees with a lay-up and modernization plan for the cruisers, with
certain modifications. Instead of inducting all eleven cruisers at one time, the Secretary of
the Navy is directed to induct no more than two cruisers per year into the phased
modernization period, beginning with two cruisers being inducted in fiscal year 2016.
Further, the Secretary of the Navy is directed to allow no more than six cruisers in lay-up at
any given time. Finally, the Secretary of the Navy is directed to ensure that the duration of
the lay-up period be no longer than four years and that modernization equipment be ordered
and placed on contract in the year prior to the ship entering its modernization period. The
Committee believes this approach will maximize the use of the Navy’s cruiser fleet while
ensuring it is modernized and relevant for the duration of its service life. The Committee
recognizes this approach comes with a cost and therefore adds $540,000,000 to the Ship
Modernization, Operations, and Sustainment Fund, as outlined in title VIII of this bill. (Page
165)
Senate
The Senate Appropriations Committee, in its report (S.Rept. 113-211 of July 17, 2014) on H.R.
4870, recommends the following changes to the Navy’s proposed FY2015 shipbuilding programs:
• a reduction of $70.0 million to the amount requested for procurement funding for
the CVN-78 aircraft carrier program;
• an addition of $483.6 million for a refueling complex overhaul (RCOH) of the
aircraft carrier George Washington (CVN-73);
• an increase of $80.0 million to the amount requested for procurement funding for
the LCS program;
• an increase of one ship and $787.4 million to the quantity and funding amount
requested for procurement of San Antonio (LPD-17) class amphibious ships—the
recommendation is to procure an LPD-17 class ship in FY2015, using
incremental funding in FY2015 and one or more future fiscal years;
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• an increase of one ship and $195.4 million to the quantity and funding amount
requested for procurement of JHSVs;
• a reduction of $42.3 million to the amount requested for outfitting of ships; and
• an increase of one craft and $61.0 million to the amount requested for the Ship-
To-Shore Connector (SSC) landing craft program (a transfer the craft and its
funding from the Navy’s research and development account). (Pages 138 and
139.)
Section 8105 of the bill as reported states:
Sec. 8105. The Secretary of the Navy shall transfer funds from the `Ship Modernization,
Operations and Sustainment Fund’ to appropriations for military personnel; operation and
maintenance; research, development, test and evaluation; and procurement, only for the
purposes of manning, operating, sustaining, equipping and modernizing the Ticonderoga-
class guided missile cruisers CG-63, CG-64, CG-65, CG-66, CG-67, CG-68, CG-69, CG-70,
CG-71, CG-72, CG-73, and the Whidbey Island -class dock landing ships LSD-41, LSD-42,
and LSD-46: Provided, That funds transferred shall be merged with and be available for the
same purposes and for the same time period as the appropriation to which they are
transferred: Provided further, That the transfer authority provided herein shall be in addition
to any other transfer authority available to the Department of Defense: Provided further, That
the Secretary of the Navy shall, not less than 30 days prior to making any transfer from the
`Ship Modernization, Operations and Sustainment Fund’, notify the congressional defense
committees in writing of the details of such transfer: Provided further, That the Secretary of
the Navy shall transfer and obligate funds from the `Ship Modernization, Operations and
Sustainment Fund’ for modernization of two Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers as
detailed above in fiscal year 2015: Provided further, That no more than six Ticonderoga-
class guided missile cruisers shall be in a phased modernization at any time: Provided
further, That the prohibition in section 2244a(a) of title 10, United States Code, shall not
apply to the use of any funds transferred pursuant to this section.
S.Rept. 113-211 states:
SHIP MODERNIZATION, OPERATIONS AND SUSTAINMENT FUND [SMOSF]
The fiscal year 2015 budget request includes a new proposal by the Navy to remove 11
Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers and three amphibious dock landing ships from the
operational fleet and lay them up for several years under a phased modernization plan. This
proposal does not conform with direction provided in the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense
Authorization Act, the Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, the
Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2013, and the Department of Defense
Appropriations Act, 2014. The Committee notes that the Navy’s proposal removes more
Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers and amphibious dock landing ships from the
operational fleet than previously proposed, relies on the congressional defense committees
providing additional financial management and acquisition authorities, and the Navy’s
budget plan does not contain full funding in the outyears for this proposal.
The Committee does not support the Navy’s proposal due to concerns over the duration of
the proposed lay-up period for several of the ships, the additional authorities required, and
severe doubts as to whether the Navy would execute the phased modernization plan as
proposed given the volatility in Navy budgets in recent years. Further, the Committee is
perturbed by the Navy’s disregard for congressional direction provided for two consecutive
years. Therefore, the Committee recommendation denies the Navy’s proposal and instead
recommends a modified modernization plan that conforms with the Navy’s proposal to
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expand the application of SMOSF funds to four additional Ticonderoga-class guided missile
cruisers and an additional amphibious dock landing ship, while modifying the induction
schedule for the SMOSF ships’ modernization. The Committee notes that the SMOSF
contains over $1,700,000,000, which is sufficient to fund this plan in the near-term and
expects the Navy to budget for additional funds required in the mid- and long-term. (Page
11)
S.Rept. 113-211 also states:
Shipbuilding Industrial Base and Workload Allocation.—The Committee remains concerned
generally about the overall health of the shipbuilding industrial base and specifically about
the health of the non-nuclear surface combatant shipbuilding industry. The Committee
reiterates its commitment to the goal of reducing costs and increasing value in the
shipbuilding program and believes that cooperative workload allocation agreements between
the Navy and industry may provide an alternative method to obtain efficiency and economies
in Navy ship design and construction with the goals of closing the shortfalls in the fleet and
retain the shipbuilding industrial base needed for future military requirements. Therefore, the
Secretary of the Navy is directed to engage industry in discussions on future shipbuilding
workload distribution and methods to ensure the viability of the non-nuclear shipyards over
the long term.
For instance, when the LPD–17 program was experiencing significant production issues, the
Department of the Navy entered into a workload agreement, “Memorandum of
Understanding Concerning the Reallocation of LPD–17 and DDG–51 Ship Construction
Workload” (SWAP 1), with shipbuilders on June 17, 2002. The purpose of the agreement
was to reallocate workload to ensure “stability at both yards, stabilize and reduce total
projected shipbuilding costs for the LPD–17 Program, and maintain properly balanced
sources of supply for future Navy surface combatant shipbuilding”. The agreement also
requires the Navy to award a compensatory DDG–51 or equivalent workload if the Navy
awards a shipbuilding contract for LPD 28. The Committee understands that the Navy
considers this agreement to remain in full force and effect, and that the Navy will engage
with shipbuilders involved in the agreement to discuss workload distribution. While
Congress is not a party to this agreement, the Committee directs the Navy to submit a report
to the congressional defense committees no later than March 1, 2015, on the Navy’s options
and potential courses of action to fulfill the requirements of the SWAP 1 agreement
preceding or concurrent with when LPD 28 is placed under contract. The report should also
address strategies to ensure the viability and stability of the non-nuclear shipyards over the
long term to preserve the defense maritime industrial base and achieve the highest level of
performance and quality from the shipbuilders. (Pages 139-140)
S.Rept. 113-211 also states:
Joint High Speed Vessel [JHSV].—The Department of the Navy is procuring JHSVs for fast
intra-theater transportation of troops, military vehicles and equipment. With submission of
the fiscal year 2013 budget, the Navy assumed risk with the overall JHSV requirement and
reduced the program procurement objective from 18 to 10 ships. Under this plan, the final
ship would be purchased with fiscal year 2013 funding. However, based on the ability of the
JHSV to support all branches of the military services, provide intra-theater sealift, operate in
littoral environments and austere port environments, and support humanitarian/disaster relief
activities, the Committee supports procuring additional JHSVs to address the original
requirement. Further, the Committee notes that one JHSV is being used as an experimental
test platform for Navy technology projects. Therefore, the Committee recommends
$200,000,000 to procure one JHSV in fiscal year 2015.
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Polar-Class Icebreakers.—The Committee notes that since 2006, the United States has been
operating a Polar-class icebreaker fleet consisting of one heavy and one medium vessel. The
Committee understands that this falls short of U.S. requirements. While the United States has
deferred investment in its polar fleet, other nations such as China and Russia are pressing
ahead to develop robust icebreaking capability, allowing them to pursue their national
interests in the polar regions. The Committee supports the interagency process to develop
requirements for a new Polar-class icebreaker or similarly Arctic-capable surface vessel,
recognizing the strategic importance of Arctic operations to our Nation’s future security and
prosperity. Therefore, the Committee directs the Deputy Secretary of Defense, in cooperation
with the Secretary of the Navy and the Commandant of the United States Coast Guard, to
provide the congressional defense committees a plan to begin expanding U.S. icebreaking
capacity that will result in the approval of an operational requirements document no later
than 180 days after the date of enactment of this act. (Pages 141-142)
S.Rept. 113-211 also states (emphasis added):
Use of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Funding for Procurement of End
Items.—The fiscal year 2015 budget request includes $69,670,000 in two separate programs
in the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Navy account for the acquisition of
weapons that will be used operationally. The Committee strongly believes that these requests
violate intent of section 8055 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014, which
prohibits the use of research and development funding to procure end-items for delivery to
military forces for operational use. The Committee further notes that this legislative
provision has been carried annually for several years, and has again been requested by the
President for inclusion in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2015. The
Committee recommendation once again includes this restriction.
In particular, the fiscal year 2015 budget request includes $25,000,000 in Research,
Development, Test and Evaluation, Navy to procure two incrementally funded CH–53K
helicopters....
In addition, the fiscal year 2015 budget request includes $44,670,000 in Research,
Development, Test and Evaluation, Navy to incrementally fund a Ship to Shore Connector
ship in addition to the previously funded test asset. All of the program’s test and training
activities will be conducted with the first Ship to Shore Connector test craft. This second ship
will deliver after completion of the program’s test activities and be utilized as an operational
asset. Further, the Committee notes that the fiscal year 2015 budget request includes
$123,233,000 in Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy for the procurement of two operational
Ship to Shore Connectors. The Committee denies the use of research and development funds
for the procurement of an operational craft, and realigns funds from Research, Development,
Test and Evaluation, Navy to Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy for the procurement of a
third Ship to Shore Connector in fiscal year 2015. The realignment of funds has no impact on
the program’s acquisition schedule and allows the test program to proceed as scheduled.
(Pages 185-186)
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Appendix A. Comparing Past Ship Force Levels to
Current or Potential Future Ship Force Levels
In assessing the appropriateness of the current or potential future number of ships in the Navy,
observers sometimes compare that number to historical figures for total Navy fleet size. Historical
figures for total fleet size, however, can be a problematic yardstick for assessing the
appropriateness of the current or potential future number of ships in the Navy, particularly if the
historical figures are more than a few years old, because
• the missions to be performed by the Navy, the mix of ships that make up the
Navy, and the technologies that are available to Navy ships for performing
missions all change over time; and
• the number of ships in the fleet in an earlier year might itself have been
inappropriate (i.e., not enough or more than enough) for meeting the Navy’s
mission requirements in that year.
Regarding the first bullet point above, the Navy, for example, reached a late-Cold War peak of
568 battle force ships at the end of FY1987,36 and as of August 1, 2014, included a total of 290
battle force ships (using the new counting rules proposed by the Navy as part of its FY2015
budget submission). The FY1987 fleet, however, was intended to meet a set of mission
requirements that focused on countering Soviet naval forces at sea during a potential multi-theater
NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict, while the August 2014 fleet is intended to meet a considerably
different set of mission requirements centered on influencing events ashore by countering both
land- and sea-based military forces of potential regional threats other than Russia, including
improved Chinese military forces and non-state terrorist organizations. In addition, the Navy of
FY1987 differed substantially from the August 2014 fleet in areas such as profusion of precision-
guided air-delivered weapons, numbers of Tomahawk-capable ships, and the sophistication of
C4ISR systems and networking capabilities.37
In coming years, Navy missions may shift again, and the capabilities of Navy ships will likely
have changed further by that time due to developments such as more comprehensive
implementation of networking technology, increased use of ship-based unmanned vehicles, and
the potential fielding of new types of weapons such as lasers or electromagnetic rail guns.
The 568-ship fleet of FY1987 may or may not have been capable of performing its stated
missions; the 290-ship fleet of August 2014 may or may not be capable of performing its stated
missions; and a fleet years from now with a certain number of ships may or may not be capable of
36 Some publications have stated that the Navy reached a peak of 594 ships at the end of FY1987. This figure, however,
is the total number of active ships in the fleet, which is not the same as the total number of battle force ships. The battle
force ships figure is the number used in government discussions of the size of the Navy. In recent years, the total
number of active ships has been larger than the total number of battle force ships. For example, the Naval History and
Heritage Command (formerly the Naval Historical Center) states that as of November 16, 2001, the Navy included a
total of 337 active ships, while the Navy states that as of November 19, 2001, the Navy included a total of 317 battle
force ships. Comparing the total number of active ships in one year to the total number of battle force ships in another
year is thus an apples-to-oranges comparison that in this case overstates the decline since FY1987 in the number of
ships in the Navy. As a general rule to avoid potential statistical distortions, comparisons of the number of ships in the
Navy over time should use, whenever possible, a single counting method.
37 C4ISR stands for command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
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performing its stated missions. Given changes over time in mission requirements, ship mixes, and
technologies, however, these three issues are to a substantial degree independent of one another.
For similar reasons, trends over time in the total number of ships in the Navy are not necessarily a
reliable indicator of the direction of change in the fleet’s ability to perform its stated missions. An
increasing number of ships in the fleet might not necessarily mean that the fleet’s ability to
perform its stated missions is increasing, because the fleet’s mission requirements might be
increasing more rapidly than ship numbers and average ship capability. Similarly, a decreasing
number of ships in the fleet might not necessarily mean that the fleet’s ability to perform stated
missions is decreasing, because the fleet’s mission requirements might be declining more rapidly
than numbers of ships, or because average ship capability and the percentage of time that ships
are in deployed locations might be increasing quickly enough to more than offset reductions in
total ship numbers.
Regarding the second of the two bullet points above, it can be noted that comparisons of the size
of the fleet today with the size of the fleet in earlier years rarely appear to consider whether the
fleet was appropriately sized in those earlier years (and therefore potentially suitable as a
yardstick of comparison), even though it is quite possible that the fleet in those earlier years
might not have been appropriately sized, and even though there might have been differences of
opinion among observers at that time regarding that question. Just as it might not be prudent for
observers years from now to tacitly assume that the 290-ship Navy of August 2014 was
appropriately sized for meeting the mission requirements of 2014, even though there currently are
differences of opinion among observers on that question (as reflected, for example, in Table 7)
simply because a figure of 290 ships appears in the historical records for 2014, so, too, might it
not be prudent for observers today to tacitly assume that the number of ships of the Navy in an
earlier year was appropriate for meeting the Navy’s mission requirements that year, even though
there might have been differences of opinion among observers at that time regarding that
question, simply because the size of the Navy in that year appears in a table like Table D-1.
Previous Navy force structure plans, such as those shown in Table 1, might provide some insight
into the potential adequacy of a proposed new force-structure plan, but changes over time in
mission requirements, technologies available to ships for performing missions, and other force-
planning factors, as well as the possibility that earlier force-structure plans might not have been
appropriate for meeting the mission demands of their times, suggest that some caution should be
applied in using past force structure plans for this purpose, particularly if those past force
structure plans are more than a few years old. The Reagan-era plan for a 600-ship Navy, for
example, was designed for a Cold War set of missions focusing on countering Soviet naval forces
at sea, which is not an appropriate basis for planning the Navy today, and there was considerable
debate during those years as to the appropriateness of the 600-ship goal.38
38 Navy force structure plans that predate those shown in Table 1 include the Reagan-era 600-ship plan of the 1980s,
the Base Force fleet of more than 400 ships planned during the final two years of the George H. W. Bush
Administration, the 346-ship fleet from the Clinton Administration’s 1993 Bottom-Up Review (or BUR, sometimes
also called Base Force II), and the 310-ship fleet of the Clinton Administration’s 1997 QDR. The table below
summarizes some key features of these plans.
Features of Recent Navy Force Structure Plans
Plan
600-ship
Base Force
1993 BUR
1997 QDR
Total ships
~600 ~450/416a 346
~305/310b
Attack submarines
100 80/~55c 45-55 50/55d
(continued...)
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Appendix B. Independent Panel Assessment of 2010
QDR
The law that requires DOD to perform QDRs once every four years (10 U.S.C. 118) states that
the results of each QDR shall be assessed by an independent panel. The report of the independent
panel that assessed the 2010 QDR was released on July 29, 2010. The independent panel’s report
recommended a Navy of 346 ships, including 11 aircraft carriers and 55 attack submarines.39 The
report stated the following, among other things:
• “The QDR should reflect current commitments, but it must also plan effectively
for potential threats that could arise over the next 20 years.… we believe the
2010 QDR did not accord sufficient priority to the need to counter anti-access
challenges, strengthen homeland defense (including our defense against cyber
threats), and conduct post-conflict stabilization missions.” (Page 54)
• “In this remarkable period of change, global security will still depend upon an
American presence capable of unimpeded access to all international areas of the
Pacific region. In an environment of ‘anti-access strategies,’ and assertions to
create unique ‘economic and security zones of influence,’ America‘s rightful and
historic presence will be critical. To preserve our interests, the United States will
need to retain the ability to transit freely the areas of the Western Pacific for
security and economic reasons. Our allies also depend on us to be fully present in
the Asia-Pacific as a promoter of stability and to ensure the free flow of
commerce. A robust U.S. force structure, largely rooted in maritime strategy but
including other necessary capabilities, will be essential.” (Page 51)
• “The United States will need agile forces capable of operating against the full
range of potential contingencies. However, the need to deal with irregular and
hybrid threats will tend to drive the size and shape of ground forces for years to
(...continued)
Aircraft carriers
15e 12
11+1f 11+1f
Surface combatants
242/228g ~150
~124 116
Amphibious ships
~75h 51i 41i 36i
Source: Prepared by CRS based on DOD and U.S. Navy data.
a. Commonly referred to as 450-ship plan, but called for decreasing to 416 ships by end of FY1999.
b. Original total of about 305 ships was increased to about 310 due to increase in number of attack submarines to 55
from 50.
c. Plan originally included 80 attack submarines, but this was later reduced to about 55.
d. Plan originally included 50 attack submarines but this was later increased to 55.
e. Plus one additional aircraft carrier in the service life extension program (SLEP).
f. Eleven active carriers plus one operational reserve carrier.
g. Plan originally included 242 surface combatants but this was later reduced to 228.
h. Number needed to lift assault echelons of one Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) plus one Marine Expeditionary
Brigade (MEB).
i. Number needed to lift assault echelons of 2.5 MEBs. Changing numbers needed to meet this goal reflect in part
changes in the design and capabilities of amphibious ships.
39 Stephen J. Hadley and William J. Perry, co-chairmen, et al, The QDR in Perspective: Meeting America’s National
Security Needs In the 21st Century, The Final Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel,
Washington, 2010, Figure 3-2 on page 58.
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come, whereas the need to continue to be fully present in Asia and the Pacific and
other areas of interest will do the same for naval and air forces.” (Page 55)
• “The force structure in the Asia-Pacific needs to be increased. In order to
preserve U.S. interests, the United States will need to retain the ability to transit
freely the areas of the Western Pacific for security and economic reasons. The
United States must be fully present in the Asia-Pacific region to protect American
lives and territory, ensure the free flow of commerce, maintain stability, and
defend our allies in the region. A robust U.S. force structure, one that is largely
rooted in maritime strategy and includes other necessary capabilities, will be
essential.” (Page 66)
• “Force structure must be strengthened in a number of areas to address the need to
counter anti-access challenges, strengthen homeland defense (including defense
against cyber threats), and conduct post-conflict stabilization missions: First, as a
Pacific power, the U.S. presence in Asia has underwritten the regional stability
that has enabled India and China to emerge as rising economic powers. The
United States should plan on continuing that role for the indefinite future. The
Panel remains concerned that the QDR force structure may not be sufficient to
assure others that the United States can meet its treaty commitments in the face
of China’s increased military capabilities. Therefore, we recommend an increased
priority on defeating anti-access and area-denial threats. This will involve
acquiring new capabilities, and, as Secretary Gates has urged, developing
innovative concepts for their use. Specifically, we believe the United States must
fully fund the modernization of its surface fleet. We also believe the United
States must be able to deny an adversary sanctuary by providing persistent
surveillance, tracking, and rapid engagement with high-volume precision strike.
That is why the Panel supports an increase in investment in long-range strike
systems and their associated sensors. In addition, U.S. forces must develop and
demonstrate the ability to operate in an information-denied environment.” (Pages
59-60)
• “To compete effectively, the U.S. military must continue to develop new
conceptual approaches to dealing with operational challenges, like the Capstone
Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO). The Navy and Air Force‘s effort to
develop an Air-Sea Battle concept is one example of an approach to deal with the
growing anti-access challenge. It will be necessary to invest in modernized
capabilities to make this happen. The Chief of Naval Operations and Chief of
Staff of the Air Force deserve support in this effort, and the Panel recommends
the other military services be brought into the concept when appropriate.” (Page
51; a similar passage appears on page 67)
In recommending a Navy of 346 ships, the independent panel’s report cited the 1993 Bottom-Up
Review (BUR) of U.S. defense plans and policies. Table B-1 compares the Navy’s 306-ship goal
of March 2012 to the 346-ship Navy recommended in the 1993 BUR (as detailed partly in
subsequent Navy testimony and publications) and the ship force levels recommended in the
independent panel report.
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Table B-1. Comparison of Navy’s 306-ship goal, Navy Plan from 1993 BUR, and Navy
Plan from 2010 QDR Review Panel
2010 QDR
Independent
Navy’s 306-ship goal of
Bottom-Up Review
Review Panel
Ship Type
March 2012
(BUR) (1993)
(July 2010)
SSBNs 12-14
18
14
(SSBN force was later
reduced to 14 as a result of
the 1994 Nuclear Posture
Review)
SSGNs 0-4
0
4
(SSGN program did not yet
exist)
SSNs
~48
45 to 55
55
(55 in FY99, with a long-term
goal of about 45)
Aircraft carriers
11 active
11 active + 1
11 active
operational/reserve
Surface combatants
~145
124
n/a
(114 active + 10 frigates in
Naval Reserve Force; a total
of 110-116 active ships was
also cited)
Cruisers and destroyers
~90
n/a
n/a
Frigates
0
n/a n/a
(to be replaced by LCSs)
LCSs
~55
0
n/a
(LCS program did not exist)
Amphibious ships
~32
41
n/a
(30 operational ships
(Enough to lift 2.5 MEBs)
needed to lift 2.0 MEBs)
Dedicated mine
0
26
n/a
warfare ships
(to be replaced by LCSs)
(LCS program did not exist)
CLF ships
~29
43
n/a
Support ships
~33
22
n/a
TOTAL ships
~306
346
346
(numbers above add to
331-341)a
Source: Table prepared by CRS. Sources for 1993 Bottom-Up Review: Department of Defense, Report on the
Bottom-Up Review, October 1993, Figure 7 on page 28; Department of the Navy, Highlights of the FY 1995
Department of the Navy Budget, February 1994, p. 1; Department of the Navy, Force 2001, A Program Guide to the
U.S. Navy, 1994 edition, p. 15; Statement of VADM T. Joseph Lopez, U.S. Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval
Operations (Resources, Warfare Requirements & Assessments), Testimony to the Military Forces and Personnel
Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, March 22, 1994, pp. 2-5. Source for independent
panel report: Stephen J. Hadley and William J. Perry, co-chairmen, et al., The QDR in Perspective: Meeting
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America’s National Security Needs In the 21st Century, The Final Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent
Panel, Washington, 2010, Figure 3-2 on pages 58-59.
Notes: n/a is not addressed in the report. SSBN is nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine; SSGN is
nuclear-powered cruise missile and special operations forces submarine; SSN is nuclear-powered attack
submarine; LCS is Littoral Combat Ship; MPF(F) is Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future) ship; CLF is combat
logistics force (i.e., resupply) ship; MEB is Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
a. The Navy testified in 1994 that the planned number was adjusted from 346 to 330 to reflect reductions in
numbers of tenders and early retirements of some older amphibious ships.
In a letter dated August 11, 2010, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates provided his comments on
the independent panel’s report. The letter stated in part:
I completely agree with the Panel that a strong navy is essential; however, I disagree with the
Panel’s recommendation that DoD should establish the 1993 Bottom Up Review’s (BUR’s)
fleet of 346 ships as the objective target. That number was a simple projection of the then-
planned size of [the] Navy in FY 1999, not a reflection of 21st century, steady-state
requirements. The fleet described in the 2010 QDR report, with its overall target of 313 to
321 ships, has roughly the same number of aircraft carriers, nuclear-powered attack
submarines, surface combatants, mine warfare vessels, and amphibious ships as the larger
BUR fleet. The main difference between the two fleets is in the numbers of combat logistics,
mobile logistics, and support ships. Although it is true that the 2010 fleet includes fewer of
these ships, they are all now more efficiently manned and operated by the Military Sealift
Command and meet all of DoD’s requirements….
I agree with the Panel’s general conclusion that DoD ought to enhance its overall posture and
capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. As I outlined in my speech at the Naval War College
in April 2009, “to carry out the missions we may face in the future… we will need numbers,
speed, and the ability to operate in shallow waters.” So as the Air-Sea battle concept
development reaches maturation, and as DoD’s review of global defense posture continues, I
will be looking for ways to meet plausible security threats while emphasizing sustained
forward presence – particularly in the Pacific.40
40 Letter dated August 11, 2010, from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the chairmen of the House and Senate
Armed Services and Appropriations Committees, pp. 3 and 4. The ellipsis in the second paragraph appears in the letter.
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Appendix C. U.S. Strategy and the Size and
Structure of U.S. Naval Forces
This appendix presents some observations on the relationship between U.S. strategy and the size
and structure of U.S. naval forces that can form part of the context for assessing Navy force
structure goals and shipbuilding plans.41
Strategic considerations that can be considered in assessing Navy force structure goals and
shipbuilding plans include, among other things, the U.S. strategic rebalancing toward the Asia-
Pacific region,42 China’s modernization of its maritime military capabilities,43 and requests from
U.S. regional combatant commanders (COCOMs) for forward-deployed U.S. naval forces that the
Navy has testified would require a Navy of about 450 ships to fully meet.44
More broadly, from a strategic perspective it can be noted that that U.S. naval forces, while not
inexpensive, give the United States the ability to convert the world’s oceans—a global commons
that covers more than two-thirds of the planet’s surface—into a medium of maneuver and
operations for projecting U.S. power ashore and otherwise defending U.S. interests around the
world. The ability to use the world’s oceans in this manner—and to deny other countries the use
of the world’s oceans for taking actions against U.S. interests—constitutes an immense
asymmetric advantage for the United States. This point would be less important if less of the
world were covered by water, or if the oceans were carved into territorial blocks, like the land.
Most of the world, however, is covered by water, and most of those waters are international
waters, where naval forces can operate freely. The point, consequently, is not that U.S. naval
forces are intrinsically special or privileged—it is that they have a certain value simply as a
consequence of the physical and legal organization of the planet.
An additional point that can be noted in relating U.S. naval forces to U.S. national strategy is that
most of the world’s people, resources, and economic activity are located not in the Western
Hemisphere, but in the other hemisphere, particularly Eurasia. In response to this basic feature of
world geography, U.S. policy makers for the last several decades have chosen to pursue, as a key
element of U.S. national strategy, a goal of preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon in
one part of Eurasia or another, on the grounds that such a hegemon could represent a
concentration of power strong enough to threaten core U.S. interests by, for example, denying the
United States access to some of the other hemisphere’s resources and economic activity. Although
U.S. policy makers do not often state this key national strategic goal explicitly in public, U.S.
41 This appendix adapts material originally presented in Statement of Ronald O’Rourke, Specialist in Naval Affairs,
Congressional Research Service, Before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and
Projection Forces on the Navy’s FY2014 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan, October 23, 2013, pp. 1, 17-18.
42 For more on the strategic rebalancing, see CRS Report R42146, Assessing the January 2012 Defense Strategic
Guidance (DSG): In Brief, by Catherine Dale and Pat Towell; and CRS Report R42448, Pivot to the Pacific? The
Obama Administration’s “Rebalancing” Toward Asia, coordinated by Mark E. Manyin.
43 For more on China’s modernization of its maritime military capabilities, see CRS Report RL33153, China Naval
Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
44 Navy officials testified in March 2014 that a Navy of 450 ships would be required to fully meet COCOM requests for
forward-deployed Navy forces. (Spoken testimony of Admiral Jonathan Greenert at a March 12, 2014, hearing before
the House Armed Services Committee on the Department of the Navy’s proposed FY2015 budget, as shown in
transcript of hearing.)
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military operations in recent decades—both wartime operations and day-to-day operations—have
been carried out in no small part in support of this key goal.
The U.S. goal of preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon in one part of Eurasia or
another is a major reason why the U.S. military is structured with force elements that enable it to
cross broad expanses of ocean and air space and then conduct sustained, large-scale military
operations upon arrival. Force elements associated with this goal include, among other things, an
Air Force with significant numbers of long-range bombers, long-range surveillance aircraft, long-
range airlift aircraft, and aerial refueling tankers, and a Navy with significant numbers aircraft
carriers, nuclear-powered attack submarines, large surface combatants, large amphibious ships,
and underway replenishment ships.
The United States is the only country in the world that designs its military to cross broad
expanses of ocean and air space and then conduct sustained, large-scale military operations upon
arrival. The other countries in the Western Hemisphere do not design their forces to do this
because they cannot afford to, and because the United States is, in effect, doing it for them.
Countries in the other hemisphere do not design their forces to do this for the very basic reason
that they are already in the other hemisphere, and consequently instead spend their defense
money on forces that are tailored largely for influencing events in their own local region.
The fact that the United States designs its military to do something that other countries do not
design their forces to do—cross broad expanses of ocean and air space and then conduct
sustained, large-scale military operations upon arrival—can be important to keep in mind when
comparing the U.S. military to the militaries of other nations. For example, in observing that the
U.S. Navy has 11 aircraft carriers while other countries have no more than one or two, it can be
noted other countries do not need a significant number of aircraft carriers because, unlike the
United States, they are not designing their forces to cross broad expanses of ocean and air space
and then conduct sustained, large-scale military operations upon arrival.
As another example, it is sometimes noted, in assessing the adequacy of U.S. naval forces, that
U.S. naval forces are equal in tonnage to the next dozen or more navies combined, and that most
of those next dozen or more navies are the navies of U.S. allies. Those other fleets, however, are
mostly of Eurasian countries, which do not design their forces to cross to the other side of the
world and then conduct sustained, large-scale military operations upon arrival. The fact that the
U.S. Navy is much bigger than allied navies does not necessarily prove that U.S. naval forces are
either sufficient or excessive; it simply reflects the differing and generally more limited needs that
U.S. allies have for naval forces. (It might also reflect an underinvestment by some of those allies
to meet even their more limited naval needs.)
Countries have differing needs for naval and other military forces. The United States, as a country
located in the Western Hemisphere with a goal of preventing the emergence of a regional
hegemon in one part of Eurasia or another, has defined a need for naval and other military forces
that is quite different from the needs of allies that are located in Eurasia. The sufficiency of U.S.
naval and other military forces consequently is best assessed not through comparison to the
militaries of other countries, but against U.S. strategic goals.
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Appendix D. Size of the Navy and Navy
Shipbuilding Rate
Size of the Navy
Table D-1 shows the size of the Navy in terms of total number of ships since FY1948; the
numbers shown in the table reflect changes over time in the rules specifying which ships count
toward the total. Differing counting rules result in differing totals, and for certain years, figures
reflecting more than one set of counting rules are available. Figures in the table for FY1978 and
subsequent years reflect the battle force ships counting method, which is the set of counting rules
established in the early 1980s for public policy discussions of the size of the Navy.
As shown in the table, the total number of battle force ships in the Navy reached a late-Cold War
peak of 568 at the end of FY1987 and began declining thereafter.45 The Navy fell below 300
battle force ships in August 2003 and as of August 1, 2014, included 290 battle force ships (using
the new counting rules proposed by the Navy as part of its FY2015 budget submission).
As discussed in Appendix A, historical figures for total fleet size might not be a reliable yardstick
for assessing the appropriateness of proposals for the future size and structure of the Navy,
particularly if the historical figures are more than a few years old, because the missions to be
performed by the Navy, the mix of ships that make up the Navy, and the technologies that are
available to Navy ships for performing missions all change over time, and because the number of
ships in the fleet in an earlier year might itself have been inappropriate (i.e., not enough or more
than enough) for meeting the Navy’s mission requirements in that year.
For similar reasons, trends over time in the total number of ships in the Navy are not necessarily a
reliable indicator of the direction of change in the fleet’s ability to perform its stated missions. An
increasing number of ships in the fleet might not necessarily mean that the fleet’s ability to
perform its stated missions is increasing, because the fleet’s mission requirements might be
increasing more rapidly than ship numbers and average ship capability. Similarly, a decreasing
number of ships in the fleet might not necessarily mean that the fleet’s ability to perform stated
missions is decreasing, because the fleet’s mission requirements might be declining more rapidly
than numbers of ships, or because average ship capability and the percentage of time that ships
are in deployed locations might be increasing quickly enough to more than offset reductions in
total ship numbers.
45 Some publications have stated that the Navy reached a peak of 594 ships at the end of FY1987. This figure, however,
is the total number of active ships in the fleet, which is not the same as the total number of battle force ships. The battle
force ships figure is the number used in government discussions of the size of the Navy. In recent years, the total
number of active ships has been larger than the total number of battle force ships. For example, the Naval History and
Heritage Command (formerly the Naval Historical Center) states that as of November 16, 2001, the Navy included a
total of 337 active ships, while the Navy states that as of November 19, 2001, the Navy included a total of 317 battle
force ships. Comparing the total number of active ships in one year to the total number of battle force ships in another
year is thus an apples-to-oranges comparison that in this case overstates the decline since FY1987 in the number of
ships in the Navy. As a general rule to avoid potential statistical distortions, comparisons of the number of ships in the
Navy over time should use, whenever possible, a single counting method.
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Table D-1. Total Number of Ships in the Navy Since FY1948
FYa Number FYa Number FYa Number
1948 737 1970 769 1992 466
1949 690 1971 702 1993 435
1950 634 1972 654 1994 391
1951 980 1973 584 1995 373
1952 1,097 1974 512 1996 356
1953 1,122 1975 496 1997 354
1954 1,113 1976 476 1998 333
1955 1,030 1977 464 1999 317
1956 973 1978 468 2000 318
1957 967 1979 471 2001 316
1958 890 1980 477 2002 313
1959 860 1981 490 2003 297
1960 812 1982 513 2004 291
1961 897 1983 514 2005 282
1962 959 1984 524 2006 281
1963 916 1985 541 2007 279
1964 917 1986 556 2008 282
1965 936 1987 568 2009 285
1966 947 1988 565 2010 288
1967 973 1989 566 2011 284
1968 976 1990 547 2012 287
1969 926 1991 526 2013 285
Source: Compiled by CRS using U.S. Navy data. Numbers shown reflect changes over time in the rules
specifying which ships count toward the total. Figures for FY1978 and subsequent years reflect the battle force
ships counting method, which is the set of counting rules established in the early 1980s for public policy
discussions of the size of the Navy.
a. Data for earlier years in the table may be for the end of the calendar year (or for some other point during
the year), rather than for the end of the fiscal year.
Shipbuilding Rate
Table D-2 shows past (FY1982-FY2014) and requested or programmed (FY2015-FY2019) rates
of Navy ship procurement.
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Table D-2. Battle Force Ships Procured or Requested/Programmed, FY1982-FY2019
(Procured FY1982-FY2014; requested or programmed FY2015-FY2019)
82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00
17 14 16 19 20 17 15 19 15 11 11 7 4 4 5 4 5 5 6
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
6 6 5 7 8 4a
5a
3a 8 7 10 11b 11c 8 7 8 11
10 8
Source: CRS compilation based on Navy budget data and examination of defense authorization and
appropriation committee and conference reports for each fiscal year. The table excludes non-battle force ships
that do not count toward the 306-ship goal, such as certain sealift and prepositioning ships operated by the
Military Sealift Command and oceanographic ships operated by agencies such as the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
a. The totals shown for FY2006, FY2007, and FY2008, reflect the cancel ation two LCSs funded in FY2006,
another two LCSs funded in FY2007, and an LCS funded in FY2008.
b. The total shown for FY2012 includes two JHSVs—one that was included in the Navy’s FY2012 budget
submission, and one that was included in the Army’s FY2012 budget submission. Until FY2012, JHSVs were
being procured by both the Navy and the Army. The Army was to procure its fifth and final JHSV in
FY2012, and this ship was included in the Army’s FY2012 budget submission. In May 2011, the Navy and
Army signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) transferring the Army’s JHSVs to the Navy. In the
FY2012 DOD Appropriations Act (Division A of H.R. 2055/P.L. 112-74 of December 23, 2011), the JHSV
that was in the Army’s FY2012 budget submission was funded through the Shipbuilding and Conversion,
Navy (SCN) appropriation account, along with the JHSV that the Navy had included in its FY0212 budget
submission. The four JHSVs that were procured through the Army’s budget prior to FY2012, however, are
not included in the annual totals shown in this table.
c. Figure shown does not reflect potential quantity reduction resulting from March 1, 2013, sequester on
FY2013 funding.
Author Contact Information
Ronald O'Rourke
Specialist in Naval Affairs
rorourke@crs.loc.gov, 7-7610
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