Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans:
Background and Issues for Congress
June 10, 2019
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
RL32665

Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress

Summary
The current and planned size and composition of the Navy, the rate of Navy ship procurement,
and the prospective affordability of the Navy’s shipbuilding plans have been oversight matters for
the congressional defense committees for many years.
On December 15, 2016, the Navy released a force-structure goal that calls for achieving and
maintaining a fleet of 355 ships of certain types and numbers. The 355-ship force-level goal is the
result of a Force Structure Assessment (FSA) conducted by the Navy in 2016. The Navy states
that a new FSA is now underway as the successor to the 2016 FSA. This new FSA, Navy officials
state, is to be completed by the end of 2019. Navy officials have suggested in their public remarks
that this new FSA could change the 355-ship figure, the planned mix of ships, or both.
Some observers, viewing statements by Navy officials, believe the new FSA in particular might
shift the Navy’s surface force to a more distributed architecture that includes a reduced proportion
of large surface combatants (i.e., cruisers and destroyers), an increased proportion of small
surface combatants (i.e., frigates and LCSs), and a newly created third tier of unmanned surface
vehicles (USVs). Some observers believe the new FSA might also change the Navy’s undersea
force to a more distributed architecture that includes, in addition to attack submarines (SSNs) and
bottom-based sensors, a new element of extra-large unmanned underwater vehicles (XLUUVs),
which might be thought of as unmanned submarines.
The Navy’s proposed FY2020 budget requests funding for the procurement of 12 new ships,
including one Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft carrier, three Virginia-class attack
submarines, three DDG-51 class Aegis destroyers, one FFG(X) frigate, two John Lewis (TAO-
205) class oilers, and two TATS towing, salvage, and rescue ships. The Navy’s FY2020 five-year
(FY2020-FY2024) shipbuilding plan includes 55 new ships, or an average of 11 new ships per
year.
The Navy’s FY2020 30-year (FY2020-FY2049) shipbuilding plan includes 304 ships, or an
average of about 10 per year. If the FY2020 30-year shipbuilding plan is implemented, the Navy
projects that it will achieve a total of 355 ships by FY2034. This is about 20 years sooner than
projected under the Navy’s FY2019 30-year shipbuilding plan—an acceleration primarily due to
a decision announced by the Navy in April 2018, after the FY2019 plan was submitted, to
increase the service lives of all DDG-51 destroyers to 45 years. Although the Navy projects that
the fleet will reach a total of 355 ships in FY2034, the Navy in that year and subsequent years
will not match the composition called for in the FY2016 FSA.
One issue for Congress is whether the new FSA that the Navy is conducting will change the 355-
ship force-level objective established by the 2016 FSA and, if so, in what ways. Another oversight
issue for Congress concerns the prospective affordability of the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan.
Decisions that Congress makes regarding Navy force structure and shipbuilding plans can
substantially affect Navy capabilities and funding requirements and the U.S. shipbuilding
industrial base.

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Introduction
This report presents background information and issues for Congress concerning the Navy’s force
structure and shipbuilding plans. The current and planned size and composition of the Navy, the
rate of Navy ship procurement, and the prospective affordability of the Navy’s shipbuilding plans
have been oversight matters for the congressional defense committees for many years.
The Navy’s proposed FY2020 budget requests funding for the procurement of 12 new ships,
including one Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft carrier, three Virginia-class attack
submarines, three DDG-51 class Aegis destroyers, one FFG(X) frigate, two John Lewis (TAO-
205) class oilers, and two TATS towing, salvage, and rescue ships.
The issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify the Navy’s proposed FY2020
shipbuilding program and the Navy’s longer-term shipbuilding plans. Decisions that Congress
makes on this issue can substantially affect Navy capabilities and funding requirements, and the
U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.
Detailed coverage of certain individual Navy shipbuilding programs can be found in the
following CRS reports:
 CRS Report R41129, Navy Columbia (SSBN-826) Class 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 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 the Administration’s FY2020 budget proposal, which the
Administration withdrew on April 30, to not fund a mid-life refueling overhaul
[called a refueling complex overhaul, or RCOH] for the aircraft carrier Harry S.
Truman [CVN-75], and to retire CVN-75 around FY2024.)
 CRS Report RL32109, Navy DDG-51 and DDG-1000 Destroyer Programs:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
 CRS Report R44972, Navy Frigate (FFG[X]) Program: 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 LPD-17 Flight II Amphibious Ship Program:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke. (This report also
covers the issue of funding for the procurement of an amphibious assault ship
called LHA-9.)
 CRS Report R43546, Navy John Lewis (TAO-205) Class Oiler Shipbuilding
Program: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
 CRS Report R45757, Navy Large Unmanned Surface and Undersea Vehicles:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
For a discussion of the strategic and budgetary context in which U.S. Navy force structure and
shipbuilding plans may be considered, see Appendix A.
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Background
Navy’s 355-Ship Ship Force-Structure Goal
Introduction
On December 15, 2016, the Navy released a force-structure goal that calls for achieving and
maintaining a fleet of 355 ships of certain types and numbers. The 355-ship force-level goal
replaced a 308-ship force-level goal that the Navy released in March 2015. The 355-ship force-
level goal is the largest force-level goal that the Navy has released since a 375-ship force-level
goal that was in place in 2002-2004. In the years between that 375-ship goal and the 355-ship
goal, Navy force-level goals were generally in the low 300s (see Appendix B). The force level of
355 ships is a goal to be attained in the future; the actual size of the Navy in recent years has
generally been between 270 and 290 ships. Table 1 shows the composition of the 355-ship force-
level objective.
Table 1. 355-Ship Force-Level Goal

Ship Category
Number of ships
Ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs)
12
Attack submarines (SSNs)
66
Aircraft carriers (CVNs)
12
Large surface combatants (i.e., cruisers [CGs] and destroyers [DDGs])
104
Small surface combatants (i.e., frigates [FFGs], Littoral Combat Ships, and mine warfare ships)
52
Amphibious ships
38
Combat Logistics Force (CLF) ships (i.e., at-sea resupply ships)
32
Command and support ships
39
TOTAL
355
Source: U.S. Navy, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year
2020, Table A-1 on page 10.
355-Ship Goal Resulted from 2016 Force Structure Assessment (FSA)
The 355-ship force-level goal is the result of a Force Structure Assessment (FSA) conducted by
the Navy in 2016. An FSA is an analysis in which the Navy solicits inputs from U.S. regional
combatant commanders (CCDRs) regarding the types and amounts of Navy capabilities that
CCDRs deem necessary for implementing the Navy’s portion of the national military strategy and
then translates those CCDR inputs into required numbers of ships, using current and projected
Navy ship types. The analysis takes into account Navy capabilities for both warfighting and day-
to-day forward-deployed presence.1 Although the result of the FSA is often reduced for
convenience to single number (e.g., 355 ships), FSAs take into account a number of factors,
including types and capabilities of Navy ships, aircraft, unmanned vehicles, and weapons, as well

1 For further discussion, see U.S. Navy, Executive Summary, 2016 Navy Force Structure Assessment (FSA), December
15, 2016, pp. 1-2.
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as ship homeporting arrangements and operational cycles. The Navy conducts a new FSA or an
update to the existing FSA every few years, as circumstances require, to determine its force-
structure goal.
355-Ship Goal Made U.S. Policy by FY2018 NDAA
Section 1025 of the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA (H.R. 2810/P.L. 115-
91 of December 12, 2017), states the following:
SEC. 1025. Policy of the United States on minimum number of battle force ships.
(a) Policy.—It shall be the policy of the United States to have available, as soon as
practicable, not fewer than 355 battle force ships, comprised of the optimal mix of
platforms, with funding subject to the availability of appropriations or other funds.
(b) Battle force ships defined.—In this section, the term “battle force ship” has the meaning
given the term in Secretary of the Navy Instruction 5030.8C.
The term battle force ships in the above provision refers to the ships that count toward the quoted
size of the Navy in public policy discussions about the Navy.2
New FSA Now Being Done Could Change 355-Ship Figure and Force Mix
Overview
The Navy states that a new FSA is now underway as the successor to the 2016 FSA, and that this
new FSA is to be completed by the end of 2019. The new FSA, Navy officials state, will take into
account the Trump Administration’s December 2017 National Security Strategy document and its
January 2018 National Defense Strategy document, both of which put an emphasis on renewed
great power competition with China and Russia, as well as updated information on Chinese and
Russian naval and other military capabilities and recent developments in new technologies,
including those related to unmanned vehicles (UVs).3 Navy officials have suggested in their
public remarks that this new FSA could change the 355-ship figure, the planned mix of ships, or
both.4
Potential New Fleet Architecture
Some observers, viewing statements by Navy officials, believe the new FSA in particular might
shift the Navy’s surface force to a more distributed architecture that includes a reduced proportion
of large surface combatants (i.e., cruisers and destroyers), an increased proportion of small
surface combatants (i.e., frigates and LCSs), and a newly created third tier of unmanned surface

2 The battle force ships method for counting the number of ships in the Navy was established in 1981 by agreement
between the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense, and has been modified somewhat over time, in part by
Section 1021 of the Carl Levin and Howard P. “Buck” McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2015 (H.R. 3979/P.L. 113-291 of December 19, 2014).
3 See, for example, Marcus Weisgerber, “US Navy Re-Evaluating 355-Ship Goal,” Defense One, February 1, 2019l;
Paul McLeary, “Navy Rethinks 355-Ship Fleet: CNO Richardson,” Breaking Defense, February 1, 2019; Mallory
Shelbourne, “CNO: Navy Expects New Force-Structure Assessment ‘Later This Year,’” Inside the Navy, February 4,
2019.
4 See, for example, Megan Eckstein, “Navy: Next Force Structure Assessment Likely to Require More Small
Combatants, Supply Ships,” USNI News, March 27, 2019; Paul McLeary, “Navy Rethinks 355-Ship Fleet: CNO
Richardson,” Breaking Defense, February 1, 2019.
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vehicles (USVs). Some observers believe the new FSA might also change the Navy’s undersea
force to a more distributed architecture that includes, in addition to attack submarines (SSNs) and
bottom-based sensors, a new element of extra-large unmanned underwater vehicles (XLUUVs),
which might be thought of as unmanned submarines. In presenting its proposed FY2020 budget,
the Navy highlighted its plans for developing and procuring USVs and UUVs in coming years.
Figure 1 provides, for the surface combatant portion of the Navy,5 a conceptual comparison of
the current fleet architecture (shown on the left as the “ship centric force”) and the new, more-
distributed architecture (shown on the right as the “distributed/nodal force”). The figure does not
depict the entire surface combatant fleet, but rather a representative portion of it.
Figure 1. Navy Briefing Slide on Surface Combatant Force Architecture
Each sphere represents a ship or unmanned surface vehicle (USV)

Source: Il ustration accompanying Megan Eckstein, “Sea Hunter Unmanned Ship Continues Autonomy Testing
as NAVSEA Moves Forward with Draft RFP,” USNI News, April 29, 2019.
Notes: Each sphere represents a ship or a USV. LSC means large surface combatant (i.e., cruiser or destroyer),
and SSC means small surface combatant (i.e., frigate or Littoral Combat Ship). As shown in the color coding, the
LSCs and SSCs are equipped with a combination of sensors (green), command and control (C2) equipment (red),
and payloads other than sensors and C2 equipment, meaning principally weapons (blue). LUSVs and MUSVs, in
contrast, are equipped primarily with weapons (blue) or sensors (green).
In the figure, each sphere represents a manned ship or USV. (Since the illustration focuses on the
surface combatant force, it does not include UUVs.) As shown in the color coding, under both the

5 Other major parts of the Navy include submarines, aircraft carriers, amphibious ships, logistics (resupply) ships, and
support ships.
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current fleet architecture and the more-distributed architecture, the manned ships (i.e., the LSCs
and SSCs) are equipped with a combination of sensors (green), command and control (C2)
equipment (red), and payloads other than sensors and C2 equipment, meaning principally
weapons (blue).
Under the more-distributed architecture, the manned ships would be on average smaller (because
a greater share of them would be SSCs), and this would be possible because some of the surface
combatant force’s weapons and sensors would be shifted from the manned ships to USVs, with
weapon-equipped Large USVs (LUSVs) acting as adjunct weapon magazines and sensor-
equipped Medium USVs (MUSVs) contributing to the fleet’s sensor network.
As shown in Figure 1, under the Navy’s current surface combatant force architecture, there are to
be 20 LSCs for every 10 SSCs (i.e., a 2:1 ratio of LSCs to SSCs), with no significant contribution
from LUSVs and MUSVs. This is consistent with the Navy’s current force-level objective, which
calls for achieving a 355-ship fleet that includes 104 LSCs and 52 SSCs (a 2:1 ratio). Under the
more-distributed architecture, the ratio of LSCs to SSCs would be reversed, with 10 LSCs for
every 20 SSCs (a 1:2 ratio), and there would also now be 30 LUSVs and 40 MUSVs. A January
15, 2019, press report states:
The Navy plans to spend this year taking the first few steps into a markedly different future,
which, if it comes to pass, will upend how the fleet has fought since the Cold War. And it
all starts with something that might seem counterintuitive: It’s looking to get smaller.
“Today, I have a requirement for 104 large surface combatants in the force structure
assessment; [and] I have [a requirement for] 52 small surface combatants,” said Surface
Warfare Director Rear Adm. Ronald Boxall. “That’s a little upside down. Should I push
out here and have more small platforms? I think the future fleet architecture study has
intimated ‘yes,’ and our war gaming shows there is value in that.”6
Another way of summarizing Figure 1 would be to say that the surface combatant force
architecture (reading vertically down the figure) would change from 20+10+0+0 (i.e., a total of
30 surface combatant platforms, all manned) for a given portion of the surface combatant force,
to 10+20+30+40 (i.e., a total of 100 surface combatant platforms, 70 of which would be LUSVs
and MUSVs) for a given portion of the surface combatant force. The Navy refers to the more-
distributed architecture’s combination of LSCs, SSCs, LUSVs, and MUSVs as the Future Surface
Combatant Force (FSCF).
Figure 1 is conceptual, so the platform ratios for the more-distributed architecture should be
understood as notional or approximate rather than exact. The point of the figure is not that
relative platform numbers under the more-distributed architecture would change to the exact
ratios shown in the figure, but that they would evolve over time toward something broadly
resembling those ratios.
Some observers have long urged the Navy to shift to a more-distributed fleet architecture, on the
grounds that the Navy’s current architecture—which concentrates much of the fleet’s capability
into a relatively limited number of individually larger and more-expensive surface ships—is
increasingly vulnerable to attack by the improving maritime anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD)
capabilities (particularly anti-ship missiles and their supporting detection and targeting systems)

6 David B. Larter, “US Navy Moves Toward Unleashing Killer Robot Ships on the World’s Oceans,” Defense News,
January 15, 2019.
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of potential adversaries, particularly China.7 Shifting to a more-distributed architecture, these
observers have argued, would:
 complicate an adversary’s targeting challenge by presenting the adversary with a
larger number of Navy units to detect, identify, and track;
 reduce the loss in aggregate Navy capability that would result from the
destruction of an individual Navy platform;
 give U.S. leaders the option of deploying USVs and UUVs in wartime to sea
locations that would be tactically advantageous but too risky for manned ships;
and
 increase the modularity and reconfigurability of the fleet for adapting to changing
mission needs.8
For a number of years, Navy leaders acknowledged the views of those observers but continued to
support the current fleet architecture. More recently, however, Navy leaders appear to have
shifted their thinking, with comments from Navy officials like the one quoted above, Navy
briefing slides like Figure 1, and the Navy’s emphasis on USVs and UUVs in its FY2020 budget
submission (see next section) suggesting that Navy leaders now support moving the fleet to a
more-distributed architecture. The views of Navy leaders appear to have shifted in favor of a
more-distributed architecture because they now appear to believe that such an architecture will
be:
 increasingly needed—as the observers have long argued—to respond effectively
to the improving maritime A2/AD capabilities of other countries, particularly
China;
 technically feasible as a result of advances in technologies for UVs and for
networking widely distributed maritime forces that include significant numbers
of UVs; and
 no more expensive, and possibly less expensive, than the current architecture.
The more-distributed architecture that Navy leaders now appear to support may differ in its
details from distributed architectures that the observers have been advocating, but the general idea
of shifting to a more-distributed architecture, and of using large UVs as a principal means of
achieving that, appears to be similar. The Department of Defense (DOD) states that
The FY 2020 budget request diversifies and expands sea power strike capacity through
procurement of offensively armed Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs). The USV
investment, paired with increased investment in long-range maritime munitions, represents
a paradigm shift towards a more balanced, distributed, lethal, survivable, and cost-
imposing naval force that will better exploit adversary weaknesses and project power into
contested environments.9

7 For more on China’s maritime A2/AD capabilities, see CRS Report RL33153, China Naval Modernization:
Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
8 For additional discussion, see CRS Report RL32665, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and
Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
9 Department of Defense, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer, Defense
Budget Overview, United States Department of Defense, Fical year 2020 Budget Request, March 2019, pp. 4-5 to 4-6.
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Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO)
Shifting to a more distributed force architecture, Navy officials have suggested, could be
appropriate for implementing the Navy’s new overarching operational concept, called Distributed
Maritime Operations (DMO). Observers view DMO as a response to both China’s improving
maritime anti-access/area denial capabilities (which include advanced weapons for attacking
Navy surface ships) and opportunities created by new technologies, including technologies for
UVs and for networking Navy ships, aircraft, unmanned vehicles, and sensors into distributed
battle networks.
The Navy’s FY2020 30-year shipbuilding plan mentions DMO,10 and a December 2018
document from the Chief of Naval Operations states that the Navy will “Continue to mature the
Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept and key supporting concepts” and “Design and
implement a comprehensive operational architecture to support DMO.”11 While Navy officials
have provided few details in public about DMO, then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John
Richardson, in explaining DMO, stated in December 2018 that
Our fundamental force element right now in many instances is the [individual] carrier strike
group. We’re going to scale up so our fundamental force element for fighting is at the
fleet[-wide] level, and the [individual] strike groups plug into those [larger] numbered
fleets. And they will be, the strike groups and the fleet together, will be operating in a
distributed maritime operations way.”12
In its FY2020 budget submission, the Navy states that “MUSV and LUSV are key enablers of the
Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept, which includes being able to forward
deploy (alone or in teams/swarms), team with individual manned combatants or augment battle
groups.”13 The Navy states in its FY2020 budget submission that a Navy research and
development effort focusing on concept generation and concept development (CG/CD) will
Continue CG/CD development efforts that carry-over from FY[20]19: Additional concepts
and CONOPs [concepts of operation] to be developed in FY[20]20 will be determined
through the CG/CD development process and additional external factors. Concepts under
consideration include Unmanned Systems in support of DMO, Command and Control in
support of DMO, Offensive Mine Warfare, Targeting in support of DMO, and Advanced
Autonomous/Semi-autonomous Sustainment Systems.14
The Navy also states in its FY2020 budget submission that a separate Navy research and
development effort for fleet experimentation activities will include activities that “address key

10 U.S. Navy, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year
2020, March 2019, pp. 3, 4, 7, 8, 15, 17, 24.
11 U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Version 2.0, December 2018,
pp. 8, 10.
12 (Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson, as quoted in Megan Eckstein, “Navy Planning for Gray-Zone
Conflict; Finalizing Distributed Maritime Operations for High-End Fight,” USNI News, December 19, 2018.)
13 Department of Defense, Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Budget Estimates, Navy Justification Book Volume 2 of 5, Research,
Development, Test & Evaluation, Navy, Budget Activity 4, March 2019, p. 202. See also Kevin Eyer and Steve
McJessy, “Operationalizing Distributed Maritime Operations,” Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC),
March 5, 2019; Christopher H. Popa, et al, Distributed Maritime Operations and Unmanned Systems Tactical
Employment, Naval Postgraduate School, June 2018, 171 pp. (Systems Engineering Capstone Report); Lyla Englehorn,
Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) Workshop September 2017 After
Action Report, Naval Postgraduate School, December 2017, 99 pp.
14 Department of Defense, Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Budget Estimates, Navy Justification Book Volume 2 of 5, Research,
Development, Test & Evaluation, Navy, Budget Activity 4, March 2019, p. 1385. See also pp. 1382, 1384, 1443, 1445.
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DMO concept action plan items such as the examination of Fleet Command and Maritime
Operation Center (MOC) capabilities and the employment of unmanned systems in support of
DMO.”15
Large UVs and Navy Ship Count
Because LUSVs, MUSVs, and XLUUVs can be deployed directly from pier to perform missions
that might otherwise be assigned to manned ships and submarines, some observers have a raised a
question as to whether the large UVs covered in this report should be included in the top-level
count of the number of ships in the Navy. Navy officials state that they have not yet decided
whether to modify the top-level count of the number of ships in the Navy to include these large
UVs.
Navy’s Five-Year and 30-Year Shipbuilding Plans
FY2020 Five-Year (FY2020-FY2024) Shipbuilding Plan
Table 2 shows the Navy’s FY2020 five-year (FY2020-FY2024) shipbuilding plan. The table also
shows, for reference purposes, the ships funded for procurement in FY2019. The figures in the
table reflect a Navy decision to show the aircraft carrier CVN-81 as a ship to be procured in
FY2020 rather than a ship that was procured in FY2019. Congress, as part of its action on the
Navy’s proposed FY2019 budget, authorized the procurement of CVN-81 in FY2019.16
Table 2. FY2020 Five-Year (FY2020-FY2024) Shipbuilding Plan
FY2019 shown for reference
FY20-
FY19
FY20
FY24

(enacted) (req.) FY21 FY22 FY23 FY24 Total
Columbia (SSBN-826) class ballistic missile submarine

1

1
2
Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft carrier

1

1
Virginia (SSN-774) class attack submarine
2
3
2
2
2
2
11
Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class destroyer
3
3
2
2
3
3
13
Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)
3

0
FFG(X) frigate

1
2
2
2
2
9
LHA amphibious assault ship

1
1
LPD-17 Fight II amphibious ship

1

1

2
Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) ship
1

1

1
Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) ship
1

0
John Lewis (TAO-205) class oiler
2
2
1
1
2
1
7
TATS towing, salvage, and rescue ship
1
2
1
1
1

5
TAGOS(X) ocean surveillance ship

1
1
1
3
TOTAL
13
12
10
9
13
11
55
Source: Table prepared by CRS based on FY2020 Navy budget submission.

15 Department of Defense, Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Budget Estimates, Navy Justification Book Volume 4 of 5, Research,
Development, Test & Evaluation, Navy Budget Activity 6, March 2019, p. 290.
16 For further discussion, see CRS Report RS20643, Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
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Notes: Ships shown are battle force ships—ships that count against 355-ship goal. The figures in the table reflect
a Navy decision to show the aircraft carrier CVN-81 as a ship to be procured in FY2020 rather than a ship that
was procured in FY2019. Congress, as part of its action on the Navy’s proposed FY2019 budget, authorized the
procurement of CVN-81 in FY2019.
As shown in Table 2, the Navy’s proposed FY2020 budget requests funding for the procurement
of 12 new ships, including one Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft carrier, three Virginia-
class attack submarines, three DDG-51 class Aegis destroyers, one FFG(X) frigate, two John
Lewis (TAO-205) class oilers, and two TATS towing, salvage, and rescue ships. If the Navy had
listed CVN-81 as a ship procured in FY2019 rather than a ship to be procured in FY2020, then
the total numbers of ships in FY2019 and FY2020 would be 14 and 11, respectively.
As also shown Table 2, the Navy’s FY2020 five-year (FY2020-FY2024) shipbuilding plan
includes 55 new ships, or an average of 11 new ships per year. The Navy’s FY2019 budget
submission also included a total of 55 ships in the period FY2020-FY2024, but the mix of ships
making up the total of 55 for these years has been changed under the FY2020 budget submission
to include one additional attack submarine, one additional FFG(X) frigate, and two (rather than
four) LPD-17 Flight II amphibious ships over the five-year period. The FY2020 submission also
makes some changes within the five-year period to annual procurement quantities for DDG-51
destroyers, ESBs, and TAO-205s without changing the five-year totals for these programs.
Compared to what was projected for FY2020 itself under the FY2019 budget submission, the
FY2020 request accelerates from FY2023 to FY2020 the aircraft carrier CVN-81 (as a result of
Congress’s action to authorize the ship in FY2019), adds a third attack submarine, accelerates
from FY2021 into FY2020 a third DDG-51, defers from FY2020 to FY2021 an LPD-17 Flight II
amphibious ship to FY2021, defers from FY2020 to FY2023 an ESB ship, and accelerates from
FY2021 to FY2020 a second TAO-205 class oiler.
FY2020 30-Year (FY2020-FY2049) Shipbuilding Plan
Table 3 shows the Navy’s FY2020-FY2049 30-year shipbuilding plan. 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 ship construction times and service lives, estimated
ship procurement costs, projected shipbuilding funding levels, and industrial-base considerations.
As shown in Table 3, the Navy’s FY2020 30-year shipbuilding plan includes 304 new ships, or
an average of about 10 per year.

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Table 3. FY2020 30-Year (FY2020-FY2049) Shipbuilding Plan
FY
CVNs
LSCs
SSCs SSNs
LPSs
SSBNs
AWSs
CLFs Supt Total
20
1
3
1
3

2
2
12
21

2
2
2

1
1
1
1
10
22

2
2
2

1
2
9
23

3
2
2

1
2
3
13
24

3
2
2

1
1
1
1
11
25

3
2
2

1
1
2
11
26

2
2
2

1
1
1
2
11
27

3
2
2

1
2
1
1
12
28
1
2
2
2

1
1
1
1
11
29

3
2
2

1
1
1
1
11
30

2
1
2

1
1
1
2
10
31

3
2
2

1
2
1
2
13
32
1
2
2
2

1
1
1
2
12
33

3
2
2

1
1
1
2
12
34

2
2
2

1
2

2
11
35

3
2
2

1

1
9
36
1
2
2
2
1

8
37

3
2
2

7
38

2
2
2

1

7
39

3
2
2
1

8
40
1
2
2
2

1

8
41

3
2
2

1

8
42

2
2
2
1

1

8
43

3
2
2

1

8
44
1
2
2
2

1

8
45

3
2
2
1

2
2

12
46

2
2
2

1
2

9
47

3
2
2

1
2

10
48
1
2
2
2
1

2
2

12
49

3
2
2

1
2
3
13
Total
7
76
58
61
5
12
28
27
30
304
Source: U.S. Navy, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year
2020, Table A2-1 on page 13.
Key: FY = Fiscal Year; CVNs = aircraft carriers; LSCs = surface combatants (i.e., cruisers and destroyers);
SSCs = small surface combatants (i.e., Littoral Combat Ships [LCSs] and frigates [FFG(X)s]); SSNs = attack
submarines; LPSs = large payload submarines; SSBNs = ballistic missile submarines; AWSs = amphibious
warfare ships; CLFs = combat logistics force (i.e., resupply) ships; Supt = support ships.
Projected Force Levels Under FY2020 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan
Overview
Table 4 shows the Navy’s projection of ship force levels for FY2020-FY2049 that would result
from implementing the FY2020 30-year (FY2020-FY2049) 30-year shipbuilding plan shown in
Table 3.
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Table 4. Projected Force Levels Resulting from FY2020 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan

CVNs LSCs SSCs SSNs SSGN/LPSs SSBNs AWSs CLFs Supt Total
355-ship
12
104
52
66
0
12
38
32
39
355
goal
FY20
11
94
30
52
4
14
33
29
34
301
FY21
11
92
33
53
4
14
34
30
34
305
FY22
11
93
33
52
4
14
34
31
39
311
FY23
11
95
32
51
4
14
35
31
41
314
FY24
11
94
35
47
4
14
36
32
41
314
FY25
10
95
35
44
4
14
37
32
42
313
FY26
10
96
36
44
2
14
38
31
43
314
FY27
9
100
38
42
1
13
37
32
44
316
FY28
10
102
41
42

13
38
32
44
322
FY29
10
104
43
44

12
36
32
44
325
FY30
10
107
45
46

11
36
32
44
331
FY31
10
110
47
48

11
36
32
43
337
FY32
10
112
49
49

11
36
32
44
343
FY33
10
115
50
51

11
38
32
44
351
FY34
10
117
52
53

11
36
32
44
355
FY35
10
114
55
54

11
34
32
45
355
FY36
10
109
57
56

11
35
32
45
355
FY37
10
107
58
58

10
35
32
45
355
FY38
10
108
59
57

10
35
32
44
355
FY39
10
105
61
58

10
37
32
42
355
FY40
9
105
62
59

10
37
32
41
355
FY41
10
104
61
59

11
37
32
41
355
FY42
9
106
60
61

12
36
32
39
355
FY43
9
108
57
61
1
12
36
32
39
355
FY44
9
109
55
62
1
12
36
32
39
355
FY45
10
107
55
63
1
12
36
32
39
355
FY46
9
106
54
64
2
12
37
32
39
355
FY47
9
107
54
65
2
12
35
32
39
355
FY48
9
109
51
66
2
12
35
32
39
355
FY49
10
108
50
67
3
12
35
31
39
355
Source: U.S. Navy, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year
2020, Table A2-4 on page 13.
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; CVNs = aircraft carriers; LSCs = surface combatants (i.e., cruisers and destroyers);
SSCs = small surface combatants (i.e., frigates, Littoral Combat Ships [LCSs], and mine warfare ships); SSNs =
attack submarines; SSGNs/LPSs = cruise missile submarines/large payload submarines; SSBNs = ballistic
missile submarines; AWSs = amphibious warfare ships; CLFs = combat logistics force (i.e., resupply) ships;
Supt = support ships.
As shown in Table 4, if the FY2020 30-year shipbuilding plan is implemented, the Navy projects
that it will achieve a total of 355 ships by FY2034. This is about 20 years sooner than projected
under the Navy’s FY2019 30-year shipbuilding plan. This is not primarily because the FY2020
30-year plan includes more ships than did the FY2019 plan: The total of 304 ships in the FY2020
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Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress

plan is only three ships higher than the total of 301 ships in the FY2019 plan. Instead, it is
primarily due to a decision announced by the Navy in April 2018, after the FY2019 budget was
submitted, to increase the service lives of all DDG-51 destroyers—both those existing and those
to be built in the future—to 45 years. Prior to this decision, the Navy had planned to keep older
DDG-51s (referred to as the Flight I/II DDG-51s) in service for 35 years and newer DDG-51s
(the Flight II/III DDG-51s) for 40 years. Figure 2 shows the Navy’s projections for the total
number of ships in the Navy under the Navy’s FY2019 and FY2020 budget submissions. As can
be seen in the figure, the Navy projected under the FY2019 plan that the fleet would not reach a
total of 355 ships any time during the 30-year period.
Figure 2. Projected Size of Navy Under FY2019 and FY2020 30-Year Shipbuilding
Plans

Source: U.S. Navy, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year
2020, Figure A2-1 on page 14. PB2020 and PB2019 mean President’s Budget (i.e., the Administration’s proposed
budget) for FY2020 and FY2019, respectively.
Adjustment Needed for Withdrawn Proposal Regarding CVN-75 RCOH
The projected number of aircraft carriers in Table 4, the projected total number of all ships in
Table 4, and the line showing the total number of ships under the Navy’s FY2020 budget
submission in Figure 2 all reflect the Navy’s proposal, under its FY2020 budget submission, to
not fund the mid-life nuclear refueling overhaul (called a refueling complex overhaul, or RCOH)
of the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), and to instead retire CVN-75 around FY2024.
On April 30, 2019, however, the Administration announced that it was withdrawing this proposal
from the Navy’s FY2020 budget submission. The Administration now supports funding the CVN-
75 RCOH and keeping CVN-75 in service past FY2024.
As a result of the withdrawal of its proposal regarding the CVN-75 RCOH, the projected number
of aircraft carriers and consequently the projected total number of all ships are now one ship
higher for the period FY2022-FY2047 than what is shown in Table 4, and the line in Figure 2
would be adjusted upward by one ship for those years.17 (The figures in Table 4 are left
unchanged from what is shown in the FY2020 budget submission so as to accurately reflect what
is shown in that budget submission.)

17 For additional discussion of the now-withdrawn proposal concerning the CVN-75 RCOH, see CRS Report RS20643,
Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
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355-Ship Total Attained 20 Years Sooner; Mix Does Not Match FSA Mix
As shown in Table 4, although the Navy projects that the fleet will reach a total of 355 ships in
FY2034, the Navy in that year and subsequent years will not match the composition called for in
the FY2016 FSA. Among other things, the Navy will have more than the required number of
large surface combatants (i.e., cruisers and destroyers) from FY2030 through FY2040 (a
consequence of the decision to extend the service lives of DDG-51s to 45 years), fewer than the
required number of aircraft carriers through the end of the 30-year period, fewer than the required
number of attack submarines through FY2047, and fewer than the required number of amphibious
ships through the end of the 30-year period. The Navy acknowledges that the mix of ships will
not match that called for by the 2016 FSA but states that if the Navy is going to have too many
ships of a certain kind, DDG-51s are not a bad type of ship to have too many of, because they are
very capable multi-mission ships.
Issues for Congress
Whether New FSA Will Change 355-Ship Goal and, If So, How
One issue for Congress is whether the new FSA that the Navy is conducting will change the 355-
ship force-level objective established by the 2016 FSA and, if so, in what ways. As discussed
earlier, Navy officials have suggested in their public remarks that this new FSA could shift the
Navy toward a more distributed force architecture, which could change the 355-ship figure, the
planned mix of ships, or both. The issue for Congress is how to assess the appropriateness of the
Navy’s FY2020 shipbuilding plans when a key measuring stick for conducting that assessment—
the Navy’s force-level goal and planned force mix—might soon change.
Affordability of 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan
Overview
Another oversight issue for Congress concerns the prospective affordability of the Navy’s 30-year
shipbuilding plan. This issue has been a matter of oversight focus for several years, and
particularly since the enactment in 2011 of the Budget Control Act, or BCA (S. 365/P.L. 112-25
of August 2, 2011). Observers have been particularly concerned about the plan’s prospective
affordability during the decade or so from the mid-2020s through the mid-2030s, when the plan
calls for procuring Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines as well as replacements for large
numbers of retiring attack submarines, cruisers, and destroyers.18
Figure 3 shows, in a graphic form, the Navy’s estimate of the annual amounts of funding that
would be needed to implement the Navy’s FY2020 30-year shipbuilding plan. The figure shows
that during the period from the mid-2020s through the mid-2030s, the Navy estimates that

18 The Navy’s 30-year plans in recent years have spotlighted for policymakers the substantial increase in Navy
shipbuilding funding that would be required to implement the 30-year plan during the decade or so from the mid-2020s
through the mid-2030s. As discussed in CRS testimony in 2011, a key function of the 30-year shipbuilding plan is to
alert policymakers well ahead of time to periods of potentially higher funding requirements for Navy shipbuilding. (See
Statement of Ronald O’Rourke, Specialist in Naval Affairs, Congressional Research Service, before the House Armed
Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, hearing on the Department of Defense’s 30-Year
Aviation and Shipbuilding Plans, June 1, 2011, 8 pp.)
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implementing the FY2020 30-year shipbuilding plan would require roughly $24 billion per year
in shipbuilding funds.
Figure 3. Navy Estimate of Funding Requirements for FY2020 30-Year Plan
Constant FY2019 dollars, in millions

Source: U.S. Navy, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year
2020, Figure A4-1 on page 18. CBO vs. Navy Estimates of Cost of 30-Year Plan.
Concern Regarding Potential Impact of Columbia-Class Program
As discussed in the CRS report on the Columbia-class program,19 the Navy since 2013 has
identified the Columbia-class program as its top program priority, meaning that it is the Navy’s
intention to fully fund this program, if necessary at the expense of other Navy programs,
including other Navy shipbuilding programs. This led to concerns that in a situation of finite
Navy shipbuilding budgets, funding requirements for the Columbia-class program could crowd
out funding for procuring other types of Navy ships. These concerns in turn led to the creation by
Congress of the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund (NSBDF), a fund in the DOD budget that is
intended in part to encourage policymakers to identify funding for the Columbia-class program
from sources across the entire DOD budget rather than from inside the Navy’s budget alone.
Several years ago, when concerns arose about the potential impact of the Columbia-class program
on funding available for other Navy shipbuilding programs, the Navy’s shipbuilding budget was
roughly $14 billion per year, and the roughly $7 billion per year that the Columbia-class program
is projected to require from the mid-2020s to the mid-2030s (see Figure 3) represented roughly
one-half of that total. With the Navy’s shipbuilding budget having grown in more recent years to

19 CRS Report R41129, Navy Columbia (SSBN-826) Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Program: Background and
Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
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a total of roughly $24 billion per year, the $7 billion per year projected to be required by the
Columbia-class program during those years does not loom proportionately as large as it once did
in the Navy’s shipbuilding budget picture. Even so, some concerns remain regarding the potential
impact of the Columbia-class program on funding available for other Navy shipbuilding
programs.
Potential for Cost Growth on Navy Ships
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 Figure 3 would not be sufficient to procure all the
ships shown in the 30-year shipbuilding plan. As detailed by CBO20 and GAO,21 lead ships in
Navy shipbuilding programs in many cases have turned out to be more expensive to build than
the Navy had estimated. 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,
Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, Virginia-class attack submarines equipped with the
Virginia Payload Module (VPM), Flight III versions of the DDG-51 destroyer, FFG(X) frigates,
LPD-17 Flight II amphibious ships, and John Lewis (TAO-205) class oilers, as well as other new
classes of ships that the Navy wants to begin procuring years from now.
CBO Estimate
The statute that requires the Navy to submit a 30-year shipbuilding plan each year (10 U.S.C.
231) also requires CBO to submit its own independent analysis of the potential cost of the 30-year
plan (10 U.S.C. 231[d]). CBO is now preparing its estimate of the cost of the Navy’s FY2020 30-
year shipbuilding plan. In the meantime, Figure 4 shows, in a graphic form, CBO’s estimate of
the annual amounts of funding that would be needed to implement the Navy’s FY2019 30-year
shipbuilding plan. This figure might be compared to the Navy’s estimate of its FY2020 30-year
plan as shown in Figure 3, although doing so poses some apples-vs.-oranges issues, as the
Navy’s FY2019 and FY2020 30-year plans do not cover exactly the same 30-year periods, and
for the years they do have in common, there are some differences in types and numbers of ships
to be procured in certain years.
CBO analyses of past Navy 30-year shipbuilding plans have generally estimated the cost of
implementing those plans to be higher than what the Navy estimated. Consistent with that past
pattern, as shown in Table 5, CBO’s estimate of the cost to implement the Navy’s FY2019 30-
year (FY2019-FY2048) shipbuilding plan is about 27% higher than the Navy’s estimated cost for
the FY2019 plan. (Table 5 does not pose an apples-vs.-oranges issue, because both the Navy and
CBO estimates in this table are for the Navy’s FY2019 30-year plan.) More specifically, as shown
in the table, CBO estimated that the cost of the first 10 years of the FY2019 30-year plan would
be about 2% higher than the Navy’s estimate; that the cost of the middle 10 years of the plan
would be about 13% higher than the Navy’s estimate; and that the cost of the final 10 years of the
plan would be about 27% higher than the Navy’s estimate.22

20 See Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2019 Shipbuilding Plan, October 2018, p.
25, including Figure 10.
21 See Government Accountability Office, Navy Shipbuilding[:] Past Performance Provides Valuable Lessons for
Future Investments, GAO-18-238SP, June 2018, p. 8.
22 Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2019 Shipbuilding Plan, October 2018, Table 4
on page 13.
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Figure 4. CBO Estimate of Funding Requirements for 30-Year Plan
Constant FY2018 dollars, in millions

Source: Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2019 Shipbuilding Plan, October 2018,
Figure 8 on page 16.
Table 5. Navy and CBO Estimates of Cost of FY2019 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan
Funding for new-construction ships, in billions of constant FY2018 dollars
Middle 10
Entire 30
First 10 years
years of the
Final 10 years
years of the

of the plan
plan
of the plan
plan
Navy estimate
19.7
22.7
21.1
21.0
CBO estimate
20.0
25.7
28.6
26.7
% difference between Navy
2%
13%
36%
27%
and CBO estimates
Source: Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2019 Shipbuilding Plan, October 2018,
Table 4 on page 13.
Treatment of Inflation
The growing divergence between CBO’s estimate and the Navy’s estimate as one moves from the
first 10 years of the 30-year plan to the final 10 years of the plan is due in part to a technical
difference between CBO and the Navy regarding the treatment of inflation. This difference
compounds over time, making it increasingly important as a factor in the difference between
CBO’s estimates and the Navy’s estimates the further one goes into the 30-year period. In other
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words, other things held equal, this factor tends to push the CBO and Navy estimates further apart
as one proceeds from the earlier years of the plan to the later years of the plan.23
Designs of Future Classes of Ships
The growing divergence between CBO’s estimate and the Navy’s estimate as one moves from the
first 10 years of the 30-year plan to the final 10 years of the plan is also due to differences
between CBO and the Navy about the costs of certain ship classes, particularly classes that are
projected to be procured starting years from now. The designs of these future ship classes are not
yet determined, creating more potential for CBO and the Navy to come to differing conclusions
regarding their potential cost. For the FY2019 30-year plan, the largest source of difference
between CBO and the Navy regarding the costs of individual ship classes was a new class of
SSNs that the Navy wants to begin procuring in FY2034 as the successor to the Virginia-class
SSN design. This new class of SSN, CBO says, accounted for 42% of the difference between the
CBO and Navy estimates for the FY2019 30-year plan, in part because there were a substantial
number of these SSNs in the plan, and because those ships occur in the latter years of the plan,
where the effects of the technical difference between CBO and the Navy regarding the treatment
of inflation show more strongly.
The second-largest source of difference between CBO and the Navy regarding the costs of
individual ship classes was a new class of large surface combatant (i.e., cruiser or destroyer) that
the Navy wants to begin procuring in the future, which accounted for 20% of the difference, for
reasons that are similar to those mentioned above for the new class of SSNs. The third-largest
source of difference was the new class of frigates (FFG[X]s) that the Navy wants to begin
procuring in FY2020, which accounts for 9% of the difference. The remaining 29% of difference
between the CBO and Navy estimates was accounted for collectively by several other
shipbuilding programs, each of which individually accounts for between 1% and 4% of the
difference. The Columbia-class program, which accounted for 4%, is one of the programs in this
final group.24
Legislative Activity for FY2020
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 R41129, Navy Columbia (SSBN-826) Class 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 RS20643, Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke. (This report also

23 For additional discussion of how CBO estimates the costs of new Navy ships, see Congressional Budget Office, How
CBO Estimates the Cost of New Ships, April 2018, 6 pp.
24 Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2019 Shipbuilding Plan, October 2018, Table
A-1 on page 27.
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covers the issue of the Administration’s FY2020 budget proposal, which the
Administration withdrew on April 30, to not fund a mid-life refueling overhaul
[called a refueling complex overhaul, or RCOH] for the aircraft carrier Harry S.
Truman [CVN-75], and to retire CVN-75 around FY2024.)
 CRS Report RL32109, Navy DDG-51 and DDG-1000 Destroyer Programs:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
 CRS Report R44972, Navy Frigate (FFG[X]) Program: 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 LPD-17 Flight II Amphibious Ship Program:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke. (This report also
covers the issue of funding for the procurement of an amphibious assault ship
called LHA-9.)
 CRS Report R43546, Navy John Lewis (TAO-205) Class Oiler Shipbuilding
Program: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
 CRS Report R45757, Navy Large Unmanned Surface and Undersea Vehicles:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
Legislative activity on individual Navy shipbuilding programs that are not covered in detail in the
above reports is covered below.
Summary of Congressional Action on FY2020 Funding Request
The Navy’s proposed FY2020 budget requests funding for the procurement of 12 new ships:
 1 Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft carrier;
 3 Virginia-class attack submarines;
 3 DDG-51 class Aegis destroyers;
 1 FFG(X) frigate;
 2 John Lewis (TAO-205) class oilers; and
 2 TATS towing, salvage, and rescue ships.
As noted earlier, the above list of 12 ships reflects a Navy decision to show the aircraft carrier
CVN-81 as a ship to be procured in FY2020 rather than a ship that was procured in FY2019.
Congress, as part of its action on the Navy’s proposed FY2019 budget, authorized the
procurement of CVN-81 in FY2019.
The Navy’s proposed FY2020 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, as well as
funding for activities other than the building of new Navy ships.
Table 6 summarizes congressional action on the Navy’s FY2020 funding request for Navy
shipbuilding. The table shows the amounts requested and congressional changes to those
requested amounts. A blank cell in a filled-in column showing congressional changes to requested
amounts indicates no change from the requested amount.

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Table 6. Summary of Congressional Action on FY2020 Funding Request
(Millions of dollars, rounded to nearest tenth; totals may not add due to rounding)
Congressional changes to requested amounts
Line
Authorization
Appropriation
number Program
Request
HASC
SASC
Conf.
HAC
SAC
Conf.
Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy (SCN) appropriation account
001
Columbia-class SSBN AP
1,698.9

-86.9

002
CVN-78 aircraft carrier
2,347.0

-281.0

003
Virginia-class SSN
7,155.9

-2,963.6

004
Virginia-class SSN AP
2,769.6

1,497.0

005
CVN refueling overhaul
647.9

20.0

006
CVN refueling overhaul AP
0

16.9

007
DDG-1000
155.9

008
DDG-51
5,099.3

-84.0

009
DDG-51 AP
224.0

010
LCS
0

011
FFG(X)
1,281.2

012
LPD-17 Flight II
0

013
LPD-17 Flight II AP
247.1

-247.1

014
ESB
0

015
LHA
0

016
LHA AP
0

017
EPF
0

018
TAO-205
981.2

019
TAO-205 AP
73.0

020
TATS
150.3

021
Oceanographic ships
0

022
LCU 1700 landing craft
85.7

-2.0

023
Outfitting
754.7

-18.4

024
Ship-to-shore connector (SSC)
0

65

025
Service craft
56.3

026
LCAC landing craft
0

027
USCG icebreakers AP
0

028
Completion of prior-year ships
55.7

TOTAL
23,783.7

-2,084.2

Source: Table prepared by CRS based on Navy FY2020 budget submission, committee reports, and explanatory
statements on the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act and FY2020 DOD Appropriations Act.
Notes: Mil ions of dol ars, rounded to nearest tenth. A blank cell indicates no change to requested amount.
Totals may not add due to rounding. AP is advance procurement funding; HASC is House Armed Services
Committee; SASC is Senate Armed Services Committee; HAC is House Appropriations Committee; SAC is
Senate Appropriations Committee; Conf. is conference report.
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FY2020 DOD Appropriations Act (H.R. 2698)
House
The House Appropriations Committee, in its report (H.Rept. 116-84 of May 23, 2019) on H.R.
2968, recommended the funding levels shown in the HAC column of Table 6.
H.Rept. 116-84 states:
EXPEDITIONARY SEA BASE
The Expeditionary Sea Base is a mature, affordable shipbuilding program that provides
combatant commanders with the flexibility to respond to immediate threats around the
world. The fiscal year 2020 budget request projects procurement funding for the next
Expeditionary Sea Base in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, three years later than the fiscal year
2019 budget request and shipbuilding plan had projected. The Committee encourages the
Secretary of the Navy to accelerate the procurement of the next Expeditionary Sea Base to
achieve the required capability, while allowing for greater affordability and stability for the
industrial base. (Page 176)

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Appendix A. Strategic and Budgetary Context
This appendix presents some brief comments on elements of the strategic and budgetary context
in which U.S. Navy force structure and shipbuilding plans may be considered.
Shift in International Security Environment
World events have led some observers, starting in late 2013, to conclude that the international
security environment has undergone a shift over the past several years from the familiar post-
Cold War era of the past 20-25 years, also sometimes known as the unipolar moment (with the
United States as the unipolar power), to a new and different strategic situation that features,
among other things, renewed great power competition with China and Russia, and challenges to
elements of the U.S.-led international order that has operated since World War II. This situation is
discussed further in another CRS report.25
World Geography and U.S. Grand Strategy
Discussion of the above-mentioned shift in the international security environment has led to a
renewed emphasis in discussions of U.S. security and foreign policy on grand strategy and
geopolitics.26 From a U.S. perspective on grand strategy and geopolitics, it can be noted 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. policymakers for the past 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. policymakers have not often stated this key national strategic goal explicitly in public, U.S.
military (and diplomatic) operations in recent decades—both wartime operations and day-to-day
operations—can be viewed as having been carried out in no small part in support of this key goal.

25 CRS Report R43838, A Shift in the International Security Environment: Potential Implications for Defense—Issues
for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
26 The term grand strategy generally refers in foreign policy discussions to a country’s overall approach for securing its
interests and making its way in the world, using all the national instruments at its disposal, including diplomatic,
informational, military, and economic tools (sometimes abbreviated in U.S. government parlance as DIME). A
country’s role in the world can be viewed as a visible expression of its grand strategy. For the United States, grand
strategy can be viewed as a design or blueprint at a global or interregional level, as opposed to U.S. approaches for
individual regions, countries, or issues.
The term geopolitics is often used as a synonym for international politics or for strategy relating to international
politics. More specifically, it refers to the influence of basic geographic features on international relations, and to the
analysis of international relations from a perspective that places a strong emphasis on the influence of such geographic
features. Basic geographic features involved in geopolitical analysis include things such as the relative sizes and
locations of countries or land masses; the locations of key resources such as oil or water; geographic barriers such as
oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges; and key transportation links such as roads, railways, and waterways.
For additional discussion, see CRS Report R44891, U.S. Role in the World: Background and Issues for Congress, by
Ronald O'Rourke and Michael Moodie.
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U.S. Grand Strategy and U.S. Naval Forces
As noted above, in response to basic world geography, U.S. policymakers for the past 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. The traditional U.S. goal
of preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon in one part of Eurasia or another has been 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 of aircraft carriers,
nuclear-powered attack submarines, large surface combatants, large amphibious ships, and
underway replenishment ships.27
The United States is the only country in the world that has designed 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 has been, 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 has designed 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 that has adopted 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.
More generally, from a geopolitical 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

27 For additional discussion, see CRS In Focus IF10485, Defense Primer: Geography, Strategy, and U.S. Force Design,
by Ronald O'Rourke.
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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.
Uncertainty Regarding Future U.S. Role in the World
The overall U.S. role in the world since the end of World War II in 1945 (i.e., over the past 70
years) is generally described as one of global leadership and significant engagement in
international affairs. A key aim of that role has been to promote and defend the open international
order that the United States, with the support of its allies, created in the years after World War II.
In addition to promoting and defending the open international order, the overall U.S. role is
generally described as having been one of promoting freedom, democracy, and human rights,
while criticizing and resisting authoritarianism where possible, and opposing the emergence of
regional hegemons in Eurasia or a spheres-of-influence world.
Certain statements and actions from the Trump Administration have led to uncertainty about the
Administration’s intentions regarding the U.S. role in the world. Based on those statements and
actions, some observers have speculated that the Trump Administration may want to change the
U.S. role in one or more ways. A change in the overall U.S. role could have profound implications
for DOD strategy, budgets, plans, and programs, including the planned size and structure of the
Navy.28
Declining U.S. Technological and Qualitative Edge
DOD officials have expressed concern that the technological and qualitative edge that U.S.
military forces have had relative to the military forces of other countries is being narrowed by
improving military capabilities in other countries. China’s improving military capabilities are a
primary contributor to that concern.29 Russia’s rejuvenated military capabilities are an additional
contributor. DOD in recent years has taken a number of actions to arrest and reverse the decline in
the U.S. technological and qualitative edge.30
Challenge to U.S. Sea Control and U.S. Position in Western Pacific
Observers of Chinese and U.S. military forces view China’s improving naval capabilities as
posing a potential challenge in the Western Pacific to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and
maintain control of blue-water ocean areas in wartime—the first such challenge the U.S. Navy

28 For additional discussion, see CRS Report R44891, U.S. Role in the World: Background and Issues for Congress, by
Ronald O'Rourke and Michael Moodie.
29 For more on China’s naval modernization effort, see CRS Report RL33153, China Naval Modernization:
Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
30 For more on these initiatives, see CRS Report R43838, A Shift in the International Security Environment: Potential
Implications for Defense—Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
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has faced since the end of the Cold War.31 More broadly, these observers view China’s naval
capabilities as a key element of an emerging broader Chinese military challenge to the long-
standing status of the United States as the leading military power in the Western Pacific.
Longer Ship Deployments
U.S. Navy officials have testified that fully meeting requests from U.S. regional combatant
commanders (CCDRs) for forward-deployed U.S. naval forces would require a Navy much larger
than today’s fleet. For example, Navy officials testified in March 2014 that a Navy of 450 ships
would be required to fully meet CCDR requests for forward-deployed Navy forces.32 CCDR
requests for forward-deployed U.S. Navy forces are adjudicated by DOD through a process called
the Global Force Management Allocation Plan. The process essentially makes choices about how
best to apportion a finite number forward-deployed U.S. Navy ships among competing CCDR
requests for those ships. Even with this process, the Navy has lengthened the deployments of
some ships in an attempt to meet policymaker demands for forward-deployed U.S. Navy ships.
Although Navy officials are aiming to limit ship deployments to seven months, Navy ships in
recent years have frequently been deployed for periods of eight months or more.
Limits on Defense Spending in Budget Control Act of 2011 as
Amended
Limits on the “base” portion of the U.S. defense budget established by Budget Control Act of
2011, or BCA (S. 365/P.L. 112-25 of August 2, 2011), as amended, combined with some of the
considerations above, have led to discussions among observers about how to balance competing
demands for finite U.S. defense funds, and about whether programs for responding to China’s
military modernization effort can be adequately funded while also adequately funding other
defense-spending priorities, such as initiatives for responding to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and
elsewhere in Europe and U.S. operations for countering the Islamic State organization in the
Middle East.33

31 The term “blue-water ocean areas” is used here to mean waters that are away from shore, as opposed to near-shore
(i.e., littoral) waters. Iran is viewed as posing a challenge to the U.S. Navy’s ability to quickly achieve and maintain sea
control in littoral waters in and near the Strait of Hormuz.
32 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.
33 See, for example, Statement of Admiral Jonathan Greenert, U.S. navy, Chief of Naval Operations, Before the Senate
Armed Services Committee on the Impact of Sequestration on National Defense, January 28, 2015, particularly page 4
and Table 1, entitled “Mission Impacts to a Sequestered Navy.”
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Appendix B. Earlier Navy Force-Structure Goals
Dating Back to 2001
The table below shows earlier Navy force-structure goals dating back to 2001. The 308-ship
force-level goal of March 2015, shown in the first column of the table, is the goal that was
replaced by the 355-ship force-level goal released in December 2016.
Table B-1. Earlier Navy Force-Structure Goals Dating Back to 2001
Changes
Early-2005
2002-
to
Navy goal
2004
2001
~310-
Revised
February
February
for fleet of
Navy QDR
308-
306-
316
313-ship
2006 313-
2006
260-325
goal
goal
ship
ship
ship
goal of
ship goal
Navy
ships
for
for
goal of goal of
goal of
Septem-
announced
goal for
375-
310-
March January
March
ber
through
313-ship
260-
325-
ship
ship
Ship type
2015
2013
2012
2011
mid-2011
fleet
ships ships Navya Navy
Ballistic missile submarines
12b
12b
12-14b
12b
12b
14
14
14
14
14
(SSBNs)
Cruise missile submarines
0c
0c
0-4c
4c
0c
4
4
4
4
2 or
(SSGNs)
4d
Attack submarines (SSNs)
48
48
~48
48
48
48
37
41
55
55
Aircraft carriers
11e
11e
11e
11e
11e
11f
10
11
12
12
Cruisers and destroyers
88
88
~90
94
94g
88
67
92
104
116
Frigates
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs)
52
52
~55
55
55
55
63
82
56
0
Amphibious ships
34
33
~32
33
33h
31
17
24
37
36
MPF(F) shipsi
0j
0j
0j
0j
0j
12i
14i
20i
0i
0i
Combat logistics (resupply) ships
29
29
~29
30
30
30
24
26
42
34
Dedicated mine warfare ships
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
26k
16
Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSVs)
10l
10l
10l
10l
21l
3
0
0
0
0
Otherm
24
23
~23
16
24n
17
10
11
25
25
Total battle force ships
308
306
~310-
313
328
313
260
325
375
310
316
or
312
Sources: Table prepared by CRS based on U.S. Navy data.
Notes: QDR is Quadrennial Defense Review. The “~” symbol means approximately.
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 Columbia (SSBN-826) Class 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 0.
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.
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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.
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—specifically, 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. AFSBs are now called Expeditionary Support Base ships
(ESBs).
k. The figure of 26 dedicated mine warfare ships included 10 ships maintained in a reduced mobilization status
called 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 goal 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.

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Appendix C. 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 FY1987,34 and as of May 7, 2019, included a total of 289
battle force ships. 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 multitheater NATO-
Warsaw Pact conflict, while the May 2019 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 China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, as well as nonstate terrorist
organizations. In addition, the Navy of FY1987 differed substantially from the May 2019 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.35
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 289-ship fleet of May 2019 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
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

34 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.
35 C4ISR stands for command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
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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 286-ship Navy of September 2018 was
appropriately sized for meeting the mission requirements of 2018, even though there were
differences of opinion among observers on that question, simply because a figure of 286 ships
appears in the historical records for 2016, 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 H-1.
Previous Navy force structure plans, such as those shown in Table B-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 goal 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.36

36 Navy force structure plans that predate those shown in Table B-1 include the Reagan-era 600-ship goal 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
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 goal, but called for decreasing to 416 ships by end of FY1999.
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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.
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Appendix D. Industrial Base Ability for, and
Employment Impact of, Additional Shipbuilding
Work
This appendix presents background information on the ability of the industrial base to take on the
additional shipbuilding work associated with achieving and maintaining the Navy’s 355-ship
force-level goal and on the employment impact of additional shipbuilding work.
Industrial Base Ability
The U.S. shipbuilding industrial base has some unused capacity to take on increased Navy
shipbuilding work, particularly for certain kinds of surface ships, and its capacity could be
increased further over time to support higher Navy shipbuilding rates. Navy shipbuilding rates
could not be increased steeply across the board overnight—time (and investment) would be
needed to hire and train additional workers and increase production facilities at shipyards and
supplier firms, particularly for supporting higher rates of submarine production. Depending on
their specialties, newly hired workers could be initially less productive per unit of time worked
than more experienced workers.
Some parts of the shipbuilding industrial base, such as the submarine construction industrial base,
could face more challenges than others in ramping up to the higher production rates required to
build the various parts of the 355-ship fleet. Over a period of a few to several years, with
investment and management attention, Navy shipbuilding could ramp up to higher rates for
achieving a 355-ship fleet over a period of 20-30 years.
An April 2017 CBO report stated that
all seven shipyards [currently involved in building the Navy’s major ships] would need to
increase their workforces and several would need to make improvements to their
infrastructure in order to build ships at a faster rate. However, certain sectors face greater
obstacles in constructing ships at faster rates than others: Building more submarines to
meet the goals of the 2016 force structure assessment would pose the greatest challenge to
the shipbuilding industry. Increasing the number of aircraft carriers and surface combatants
would pose a small to moderate challenge to builders of those vessels. Finally, building
more amphibious ships and combat logistics and support ships would be the least
problematic for the shipyards. The workforces across those yards would need to increase
by about 40 percent over the next 5 to 10 years. Managing the growth and training of those
new workforces while maintaining the current standard of quality and efficiency would
represent the most significant industrywide challenge. In addition, industry and Navy
sources indicate that as much as $4 billion would need to be invested in the physical
infrastructure of the shipyards to achieve the higher production rates required under the
[notional] 15-year and 20-year [buildup scenarios examined by CBO]. Less investment
would be needed for the [notional] 25-year or 30-year [buildup scenarios examined by
CBO].37
A January 13, 2017, press report states the following:
The Navy’s production lines are hot and the work to prepare them for the possibility of
building out a much larger fleet would be manageable, the service’s head of acquisition
said Thursday.

37 Congressional Budget Office, Costs of Building a 355-Ship Navy, April 2017, pp. 9-10.
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From a logistics perspective, building the fleet from its current 274 ships to 355, as
recommended in the Navy’s newest force structure assessment in December, would be
straightforward, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and
Acquisition Sean Stackley told reporters at the Surface Navy Association’s annual
symposium.
“By virtue of maintaining these hot production lines, frankly, over the last eight years, our
facilities are in pretty good shape,” Stackley said. “In fact, if you talked to industry, they
would say we’re underutilizing the facilities that we have.”
The areas where the Navy would likely have to adjust “tooling” to answer demand for a
larger fleet would likely be in Virginia-class attack submarines and large surface
combatants, the DDG-51 guided missile destroyers—two ship classes likely to surge if the
Navy gets funding to build to 355 ships, he said.
“Industry’s going to have to go out and procure special tooling associated with going from
current production rates to a higher rate, but I would say that’s easily done,” he said.
Another key, Stackley said, is maintaining skilled workers—both the builders in the yards
and the critical supply-chain vendors who provide major equipment needed for ship
construction. And, he suggested, it would help to avoid budget cuts and other events that
would force workforce layoffs.
“We’re already prepared to ramp up,” he said. “In certain cases, that means not laying off
the skilled workforce we want to retain.”38
A January 17, 2017, press report states the following:
Building stable designs with active production lines is central to the Navy’s plan to grow
to 355 ships. “if you look at the 355-ship number, and you study the ship classes (desired),
the big surge is in attack submarines and large surface combatants, which today are DDG-
51 (destroyers),” the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Sean Stackley, told reporters at last
week’s Surface Navy Association conference. Those programs have proven themselves
reliable performers both at sea and in the shipyards.
From today’s fleet of 274 ships, “we’re on an irreversible path to 308 by 2021. Those ships
are already in construction,” said Stackley. “To go from there to 355, virtually all those
ships are currently in production, with some exceptions: Ohio Replacement, (we) just got
done the Milestone B there (to move from R&D into detailed design); and then upgrades
to existing platforms. So we have hot production lines that will take us to that 355-ship
Navy.”39
A January 24, 2017, press report states the following:
Navy officials say a recently determined plan to increase its fleet size by adding more new
submarines, carriers and destroyers is “executable” and that early conceptual work toward
this end is already underway....
Although various benchmarks will need to be reached in order for this new plan to come
to fruition, such as Congressional budget allocations, Navy officials do tell Scout Warrior
that the service is already working—at least in concept—on plans to vastly enlarge the
fleet. Findings from this study are expected to inform an upcoming 2018 Navy
Shipbuilding Plan, service officials said.40

38 Hope Hodge Seck, “Navy Acquisition Chief: Surge to 355 Ships ‘Easily Done,’” DoD Buzz, January 13, 2017.
39 Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Build More Ships, But Not New Designs: CNO Richardson To McCain,” Breaking
Defense, January 17, 2017.
40 Kris Osborn, “Navy: Larger 355-Ship Fleet—‘Executable,’” Scout Warrior, January 24, 2017.
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A January 12, 2017, press report states the following:
Brian Cuccias, president of Ingalls Shipbuilding [a shipyard owned by Huntington Ingalls
Industries (HII) that builds Navy destroyers and amphibious ships as well as Coast Guard
cutters], said Ingalls, which is currently building 10 ships for four Navy and Coast Guard
programs at its 800-acre facility in Pascagoula, Miss., could build more because it is using
only 70 to 75 percent of its capacity.41
A March 2017 press report states the following:
As the Navy calls for a larger fleet, shipbuilders are looking toward new contracts and
ramping up their yards to full capacity....
The Navy is confident that U.S. shipbuilders will be able to meet an increased demand,
said Ray Mabus, then-secretary of the Navy, during a speech at the Surface Navy
Association’s annual conference in Arlington, Virginia.
They have the capacity to “get there because of the ships we are building today,” Mabus
said. “I don’t think we could have seven years ago.”
Shipbuilders around the United States have “hot” production lines and are manufacturing
vessels on multi-year or block buy contracts, he added. The yards have made investments
in infrastructure and in the training of their workers.
“We now have the basis ... [to] get to that much larger fleet,” he said....
Shipbuilders have said they are prepared for more work.
At Ingalls Shipbuilding—a subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries—10 ships are under
construction at its Pascagoula, Mississippi, yard, but it is under capacity, said Brian
Cuccias, the company’s president.
The shipbuilder is currently constructing five guided-missile destroyers, the latest San
Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, and two national security cutters for the
Coast Guard.
“Ingalls is a very successful production line right now, but it has the ability to actually
produce a lot more in the future,” he said during a briefing with reporters in January.
The company’s facility is currently operating at 75 percent capacity, he noted....
Austal USA—the builder of the Independence-variant of the littoral combat ship and the
expeditionary fast transport vessel—is also ready to increase its capacity should the Navy
require it, said Craig Perciavalle, the company’s president.
The latest discussions are “certainly something that a shipbuilder wants to hear,” he said.
“We do have the capability of increasing throughput if the need and demand were to arise,
and then we also have the ability with the present workforce and facility to meet a different
mix that could arise as well.”
Austal could build fewer expeditionary fast transport vessels and more littoral combat
ships, or vice versa, he added.
“The key thing for us is to keep the manufacturing lines hot and really leverage the
momentum that we’ve gained on both of the programs,” he said.

41 Marc Selinger, “Navy Needs More Aircraft to Match Ship Increase, Secretary [of the Navy] Says,” Defense Daily,
January 12, 2017. See also Lee Hudson, “Ingalls Operating at About 75 Percent Capacity, Provided Info to Trump
Team,” Inside the Navy, January 16, 2017.
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The company—which has a 164-acre yard in Mobile, Alabama—is focused on the
extension of the LCS and expeditionary fast transport ship program, but Perciavalle noted
that it could look into manufacturing other types of vessels.
“We do have excess capacity to even build smaller vessels … if that opportunity were to
arise and we’re pursuing that,” he said.
Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a
Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said shipbuilders are on average running between 70
and 80 percent capacity. While they may be ready to meet an increased demand for ships,
it would take time to ramp up their workforces.
However, the bigger challenge is the supplier industrial base, he said.
“Shipyards may be able to build ships but the supplier base that builds the pumps … and
the radars and the radios and all those other things, they don’t necessarily have that ability
to ramp up,” he said. “You would need to put some money into building up their capacity.”
That has to happen now, he added.
Rear Adm. William Gallinis, program manager for program executive office ships, said
what the Navy must be “mindful of is probably our vendor base that support the shipyards.”
Smaller companies that supply power electronics and switchboards could be challenged,
he said.
“Do we need to re-sequence some of the funding to provide some of the facility
improvements for some of the vendors that may be challenged? My sense is that the
industrial base will size to the demand signal. We just need to be mindful of how we
transition to that increased demand signal,” he said.
The acquisition workforce may also see an increased amount of stress, Gallinis noted. “It
takes a fair amount of experience and training to get a good contracting officer to the point
to be [able to] manage contracts or procure contracts.”
“But I don’t see anything that is insurmountable,” he added.42
At a May 24, 2017, hearing before the Seapower subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services
Committee on the industrial-base aspects of the Navy’s 355-ship goal, John P. Casey, executive
vice president–marine systems, General Dynamics Corporation (one of the country’s two
principal builders of Navy ships) stated the following:
It is our belief that the Nation’s shipbuilding industrial base can scale-up hot production
lines for existing ships and mobilize additional resources to accomplish the significant
challenge of achieving the 355-ship Navy as quickly as possible....
Supporting a plan to achieve a 355-ship Navy will be the most challenging for the nuclear
submarine enterprise. Much of the shipyard and industrial base capacity was eliminated
following the steep drop-off in submarine production that occurred with the cancellation
of the Seawolf Program in 1992. The entire submarine industrial base at all levels of the
supply chain will likely need to recapitalize some portion of its facilities, workforce, and
supply chain just to support the current plan to build the Columbia Class SSBN program,
while concurrently building Virginia Class SSNs. Additional SSN procurement will
require industry to expand its plans and associated investment beyond the level today....
Shipyard labor resources include the skilled trades needed to fabricate, build and outfit
major modules, perform assembly, test and launch of submarines, and associated support
organizations that include planning, material procurement, inspection, quality assurance,
and ship certification. Since there is no commercial equivalency for Naval nuclear

42 Yasmin Tadjdeh, “Navy Shipbuilders Prepared for Proposed Fleet Buildup,” National Defense, March 2017.
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submarine shipbuilding, these trade resources cannot be easily acquired in large numbers
from other industries. Rather, these shipyard resources must be acquired and developed
over time to ensure the unique knowledge and know-how associated with nuclear
submarine shipbuilding is passed on to the next generation of shipbuilders. The
mechanisms of knowledge transfer require sufficient lead time to create the proficient,
skilled craftsmen in each key trade including welding, electrical, machining, shipfitting,
pipe welding, painting, and carpentry, which are among the largest trades that would need
to grow to support increased demand. These trades will need to be hired in the numbers
required to support the increased workload. Both shipyards have scalable processes in place
to acquire, train, and develop the skilled workforce they need to build nuclear ships. These
processes and associated training facilities need to be expanded to support the increased
demand. As with the shipyards, the same limiting factors associated with facilities,
workforce, and supply chain also limit the submarine unique first tier suppliers and sub-
tiers in the industrial base for which there is no commercial equivalency....
The supply base is the third resource that will need to be expanded to meet the increased
demand over the next 20 years. During the OHIO, 688 and SEAWOLF construction
programs, there were over 17,000 suppliers supporting submarine construction programs.
That resource base was “rationalized” during submarine low rate production over the last
20 years. The current submarine industrial base reflects about 5,000 suppliers, of which
about 3,000 are currently active (i.e., orders placed within the last 5 years), 80% of which
are single or sole source (based on $). It will take roughly 20 years to build the 12 Columbia
Class submarines that starts construction in FY21. The shipyards are expanding strategic
sourcing of appropriate non-core products (e.g., decks, tanks, etc.) in order to focus on core
work at each shipyard facility (e.g., module outfitting and assembly). Strategic sourcing
will move demand into the supply base where capacity may exist or where it can be
developed more easily. This approach could offer the potential for cost savings by
competition or shifting work to lower cost work centers throughout the country. Each
shipyard has a process to assess their current supply base capacity and capability and to
determine where it would be most advantageous to perform work in the supply base....
Achieving the increased rate of production and reducing the cost of submarines will require
the Shipbuilders to rely on the supply base for more non-core products such as structural
fabrication, sheet metal, machining, electrical, and standard parts. The supply base must be
made ready to execute work with submarine-specific requirements at a rate and volume
that they are not currently prepared to perform. Preparing the supply base to execute
increased demand requires early non-recurring funding to support cross-program
construction readiness and EOQ funding to procure material in a manner that does not hold
up existing ship construction schedules should problems arise in supplier qualification
programs. This requires longer lead times (estimates of three years to create a new
qualified, critical supplier) than the current funding profile supports....
We need to rely on market principles to allow suppliers, the shipyards and GFE material
providers to sort through the complicated demand equation across the multiple ship
programs. Supplier development funding previously mentioned would support non-
recurring efforts which are needed to place increased orders for material in multiple market
spaces. Examples would include valves, build-to-print fabrication work, commodities,
specialty material, engineering components, etc. We are engaging our marine industry
associations to help foster innovative approaches that could reduce costs and gain
efficiency for this increased volume....
Supporting the 355-ship Navy will require Industry to add capability and capacity across
the entire Navy Shipbuilding value chain. Industry will need to make investment decisions
for additional capital spend starting now in order to meet a step change in demand that
would begin in FY19 or FY20. For the submarine enterprise, the step change was already
envisioned and investment plans that embraced a growth trajectory were already being
formulated. Increasing demand by adding additional submarines will require scaling
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facility and workforce development plans to operate at a higher rate of production. The
nuclear shipyards would also look to increase material procurement proportionally to the
increased demand. In some cases, the shipyard facilities may be constrained with existing
capacity and may look to source additional work in the supply base where capacity exists
or where there are competitive business advantages to be realized. Creating additional
capacity in the supply base will require non-recurring investment in supplier qualification,
facilities, capital equipment and workforce training and development.
Industry is more likely to increase investment in new capability and capacity if there is
certainty that the Navy will proceed with a stable shipbuilding plan. Positive signals of
commitment from the Government must go beyond a published 30-year Navy Shipbuilding
Plan and line items in the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) and should include:
 Multi-year contracting for Block procurement which provides stability in the
industrial base and encourages investment in facilities and workforce
development
 Funding for supplier development to support training, qualification, and
facilitization efforts—Electric Boat and Newport News have recommended to the
Navy funding of $400M over a three-year period starting in 2018 to support
supplier development for the Submarine Industrial Base as part of an Integrated
Enterprise Plan Extended Enterprise initiative
 Acceleration of Advance Procurement and/or Economic Order Quantities (EOQ)
procurement from FY19 to FY18 for Virginia Block V
 Government incentives for construction readiness and facilities / special tooling
for shipyard and supplier facilities, which help cash flow capital investment
ahead of construction contract awards
 Procurement of additional production back-up (PBU) material to help ensure a
ready supply of material to mitigate construction schedule risk....
So far, this testimony has focused on the Submarine Industrial Base, but the General
Dynamics Marine Systems portfolio also includes surface ship construction. Unlike
Electric Boat, Bath Iron Works and NASSCO are able to support increased demand without
a significant increase in resources.....
Bath Iron Works is well positioned to support the Administration’s announced goal of
increasing the size of the Navy fleet to 355 ships. For BIW that would mean increasing the
total current procurement rate of two DDG 51s per year to as many as four DDGs per year,
allocated equally between BIW and HII. This is the same rate that the surface combatant
industrial base sustained over the first decade of full rate production of the DDG 51 Class
(1989-1999)....
No significant capital investment in new facilities is required to accommodate delivering
two DDGs per year. However, additional funding will be required to train future
shipbuilders and maintain equipment. Current hiring and training processes support the
projected need, and have proven to be successful in the recent past. BIW has invested
significantly in its training programs since 2014 with the restart of the DDG 51 program
and given these investments and the current market in Maine, there is little concern of
meeting the increase in resources required under the projected plans.
A predictable and sustainable Navy workload is essential to justify expanding
hiring/training programs. BIW would need the Navy’s commitment that the Navy’s plan
will not change before it would proceed with additional hiring and training to support
increased production.
BIW’s supply chain is prepared to support a procurement rate increase of up to four DDG
51s per year for the DDG 51 Program. BIW has long-term purchasing agreements in place
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for all major equipment and material for the DDG 51 Program. These agreements provide
for material lead time and pricing, and are not constrained by the number of ships ordered
in a year. BIW confirmed with all of its critical suppliers that they can support this
increased procurement rate....
The Navy’s Force Structure Assessment calls for three additional ESBs. Additionally,
NASSCO has been asked by the Navy and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to
evaluate its ability to increase the production rate of T-AOs to two ships per year. NASSCO
has the capacity to build three more ESBs at a rate of one ship per year while building two
T-AOs per year. The most cost effective funding profile requires funding ESB 6 in FY18
and the following ships in subsequent fiscal years to avoid increased cost resulting from a
break in the production line. The most cost effective funding profile to enable a production
rate of two T-AO ships per year requires funding an additional long lead time equipment
set beginning in FY19 and an additional ship each year beginning in FY20.
NASSCO must now reduce its employment levels due to completion of a series of
commercial programs which resulted in the delivery of six ships in 2016. The proposed
increase in Navy shipbuilding stabilizes NASSCO’s workload and workforce to levels that
were readily demonstrated over the last several years.
Some moderate investment in the NASSCO shipyard will be needed to reach this level of
production. The recent CBO report on the costs of building a 355-ship Navy accurately
summarized NASSCO’s ability to reach the above production rate stating, “building more
… combat logistics and support ships would be the least problematic for the shipyards.”43
At the same hearing, Brian Cuccias, president, Ingalls Shipbuilding, Huntington Ingalls Industries
(the country’s other principal builder of Navy ships) stated the following:
Qualifying to be a supplier is a difficult process. Depending on the commodity, it may take
up to 36 months. That is a big burden on some of these small businesses. This is why
creating sufficient volume and exercising early contractual authorization and advance
procurement funding is necessary to grow the supplier base, and not just for traditional
long-lead time components; that effort needs to expand to critical components and
commodities that today are controlling the build rate of submarines and carriers alike.
Many of our suppliers are small businesses and can only make decisions to invest in people,
plant and tooling when they are awarded a purchase order. We need to consider how we
can make commitments to suppliers early enough to ensure material readiness and
availability when construction schedules demand it.
With questions about the industry’s ability to support an increase in shipbuilding, both
Newport News and Ingalls have undertaken an extensive inventory of our suppliers and
assessed their ability to ramp up their capacity. We have engaged many of our key suppliers
to assess their ability to respond to an increase in production.
The fortunes of related industries also impact our suppliers, and an increase in demand
from the oil and gas industry may stretch our supply base. Although some low to moderate
risk remains, I am convinced that our suppliers will be able to meet the forecasted Navy
demand....
I strongly believe that the fastest results can come from leveraging successful platforms on
current hot production lines. We commend the Navy’s decision in 2014 to use the existing
LPD 17 hull form for the LX(R), which will replace the LSD-class amphibious dock
landing ships scheduled to retire in the coming years. However, we also recommend that
the concept of commonality be taken even further to best optimize efficiency, affordability

43 John P. Casey, Executive Vice President – Marine Systems, General Dynamics Corporation, Testimony before the
Senate Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Seapower, 115th Congress, Supporting the 355-Ship Navy with
Focus on Submarine Industrial Base, Washington, DC, May 24, 2017, pp. 3-18. See also Marjorie Censer, “BWX
Technologies Weighs When To Ready for Additional Submarines,” Inside the Navy, May 29, 2017.
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and capability. Specifically, rather than continuing with a new design for LX(R) within the
“walls” of the LPD hull, we can leverage our hot production line and supply chain and
offer the Navy a variant of the existing LPD design that satisfies the aggressive cost targets
of the LX(R) program while delivering more capability and survivability to the fleet at a
significantly faster pace than the current program. As much as 10-15 percent material
savings can be realized across the LX(R) program by purchasing respective blocks of at
least five ships each under a multi-year procurement (MYP) approach. In the aggregate,
continuing production with LPD 30 in FY18, coupled with successive MYP contracts for
the balance of ships, may yield savings greater than $1 billion across an 11-ship LX(R)
program. Additionally, we can deliver five LX(R)s to the Navy and Marine Corps in the
same timeframe that the current plan would deliver two, helping to reduce the shortfall in
amphibious warships against the stated force requirement of 38 ships.
Multi-ship procurements, whether a formal MYP or a block-buy, are a proven way to
reduce the price of ships. The Navy took advantage of these tools on both Virginia-class
submarines and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. In addition to the LX(R) program
mentioned above, expanding multi-ship procurements to other ship classes makes sense....
The most efficient approach to lower the cost of the Ford class and meet the goal of an
increased CVN fleet size is also to employ a multi-ship procurement strategy and construct
these ships at three-year intervals. This approach would maximize the material
procurement savings benefit through economic order quantities procurement and provide
labor efficiencies to enable rapid acquisition of a 12-ship CVN fleet. This three-ship
approach would save at least $1.5 billion, not including additional savings that could be
achieved from government-furnished equipment. As part of its Integrated Enterprise Plan,
we commend the Navy’s efforts to explore the prospect of material economic order
quantity purchasing across carrier and submarine programs.44
At the same hearing, Matthew O. Paxton, president, Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA)—a
trade association representing shipbuilders, suppliers, and associated firms—stated the following:
To increase the Navy’s Fleet to 355 ships, a substantial and sustained investment is required
in both procurement and readiness. However, let me be clear: building and sustaining the
larger required Fleet is achievable and our industry stands ready to help achieve that
important national security objective.
To meet the demand for increased vessel construction while sustaining the vessels we
currently have will require U.S. shipyards to expand their work forces and improve their
infrastructure in varying degrees depending on ship type and ship mix – a requirement our
Nation’s shipyards are eager to meet. But first, in order to build these ships in as timely
and affordable manner as possible, stable and robust funding is necessary to sustain those
industrial capabilities which support Navy shipbuilding and ship maintenance and
modernization....
Beyond providing for the building of a 355-ship Navy, there must also be provision to fund
the “tail,” the maintenance of the current and new ships entering the fleet. Target fleet size
cannot be reached if existing ships are not maintained to their full service lives, while
building those new ships. Maintenance has been deferred in the last few years because of
across-the-board budget cuts....
The domestic shipyard industry certainly has the capability and know-how to build and
maintain a 355-ship Navy. The Maritime Administration determined in a recent study on
the Economic Benefits of the U.S. Shipyard Industry that there are nearly 110,000 skilled
men and women in the Nation’s private shipyards building, repairing and maintaining
America’s military and commercial fleets.1 The report found the U.S. shipbuilding

44 Statement of Brian Cuccias, President, Ingalls Shipbuilding, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Subcommittee on
Seapower, Senate Armed Services Committee, May 24, 2017, pp. 4-11.
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industry supports nearly 400,000 jobs across the country and generates $25.1 billion in
income and $37.3 billion worth of goods and services each year. In fact, the MARAD
report found that the shipyard industry creates direct and induced employment in every
State and Congressional District and each job in the private shipbuilding and repairing
industry supports another 2.6 jobs nationally.
This data confirms the significant economic impact of this manufacturing sector, but also
that the skilled workforce and industrial base exists domestically to build these ships. Long-
term, there needs to be a workforce expansion and some shipyards will need to reconfigure
or expand production lines. This can and will be done as required to meet the need if
adequate, stable budgets and procurement plans are established and sustained for the long-
term. Funding predictability and sustainability will allow industry to invest in facilities and
more effectively grow its skilled workforce. The development of that critical workforce
will take time and a concerted effort in a partnership between industry and the federal
government.
U.S. shipyards pride themselves on implementing state of the art training and
apprenticeship programs to develop skilled men and women that can cut, weld, and bend
steel and aluminum and who can design, build and maintain the best Navy in the world.
However, the shipbuilding industry, like so many other manufacturing sectors, faces an
aging workforce. Attracting and retaining the next generation shipyard worker for an
industry career is critical. Working together with the Navy, and local and state resources,
our association is committed to building a robust training and development pipeline for
skilled shipyard workers. In addition to repealing sequestration and stabilizing funding the
continued development of a skilled workforce also needs to be included in our national
maritime strategy....
In conclusion, the U.S. shipyard industry is certainly up to the task of building a 355-ship
Navy and has the expertise, the capability, the critical capacity and the unmatched skilled
workforce to build these national assets. Meeting the Navy’s goal of a 355-ship fleet and
securing America’s naval dominance for the decades ahead will require sustained
investment by Congress and Navy’s partnership with a defense industrial base that can
further attract and retain a highly-skilled workforce with critical skill sets. Again, I would
like to thank this Subcommittee for inviting me to testify alongside such distinguished
witnesses. As a representative of our nation’s private shipyards, I can say, with confidence
and certainty, that our domestic shipyards and skilled workers are ready, willing and able
to build and maintain the Navy’s 355-ship Fleet.45
Employment Impact
Building the additional ships that would be needed to achieve and maintain the 355-ship fleet
could create many additional manufacturing and other jobs at shipyards, associated supplier
firms, and elsewhere in the U.S. economy. A 2015 Maritime Administration (MARAD) report
states,
Considering the indirect and induced impacts, each direct job in the shipbuilding and
repairing industry is associated with another 2.6 jobs in other parts of the US economy;
each dollar of direct labor income and GDP in the shipbuilding and repairing industry is
associated with another $1.74 in labor income and $2.49 in GDP, respectively, in other
parts of the US economy.46

45 Testimony of Matthew O. Paxton, President, Shipbuilders Council of America, before the United States Senate
Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Seapower, [on] Industry Perspectives on Options and Considerations
for Achieving a 355-Ship Navy, May 24, 2017, pp. 3-8.
46 MARAD, The Economic Importance of the U.S. Shipbuilding and Repairing Industry, November 2015, pp. E-3, E-4,
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A March 2017 press report states, “Based on a 2015 economic impact study, the Shipbuilders
Council of America [a trade association for U.S. shipbuilders and associated supplier firms]
believes that a 355-ship Navy could add more than 50,000 jobs nationwide.”47 The 2015
economic impact study referred to in that quote might be the 2015 MARAD study discussed in
the previous paragraph. An estimate of more than 50,000 additional jobs nationwide might be
viewed as a higher-end estimate; other estimates might be lower. A June 14, 2017, press report
states the following: “The shipbuilding industry will need to add between 18,000 and 25,000 jobs
to build to a 350-ship Navy, according to Matthew Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council
of America, a trade association representing the shipbuilding industrial base. Including indirect
jobs like suppliers, the ramp-up may require a boost of 50,000 workers.”48

For another perspective on the issue of the impact of shipbuilding on the broader economy, see Edward G. Keating et
al., The Economic Consequences of Investing in Shipbuilding, Case Studies in the United States and Sweden, RAND
Corporation, 2015.
47 Yasmin Tadjdeh, “Navy Shipbuilders Prepared for Proposed Fleet Buildup,” National Defense, March 2017.
Similarly, another press report states: “The Navy envisioned by Trump could create more than 50,000 jobs, the
Shipbuilders Council of America, a trade group representing U.S. shipbuilders, repairers and suppliers, told Reuters.”
(Mike Stone, “Missing from Trump’s Grand Navy Plan: Skilled Workers to Build the Fleet,” Reuters, March 17, 2017.)
48 Jaqueline Klimas, “Growing Shipbuilding Workforce Seen as Major Challenge for Trump’s Navy Buildup,” Politico,
June 14, 2017.
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Appendix E. A Summary of Some Acquisition
Lessons Learned for Navy Shipbuilding
This appendix presents a general summary of lessons learned in Navy shipbuilding, reflecting
comments made repeatedly by various sources over the years. These lessons learned include the
following:
 At the outset, get the operational requirements for the program right.
Properly identify the program’s operational requirements at the outset. Manage
risk by not trying to do too much in terms of the program’s operational
requirements, and perhaps seek a so-called 70%-to-80% solution (i.e., a design
that is intended to provide 70%-80% of desired or ideal capabilities). Achieve a
realistic balance up front between operational requirements, risks, and estimated
costs.
 Impose cost discipline up front. Use realistic price estimates, and consider not
only development and procurement costs, but life-cycle operation and support
(O&S) costs.
 Employ competition where possible in the awarding of design and construction
contracts.
 Use a contract type that is appropriate for the amount of risk involved, and
structure its terms to align incentives with desired outcomes.
 Minimize design/construction concurrency by developing the design to a high
level of completion before starting construction and by resisting changes in
requirements (and consequent design changes) during construction.
 Properly supervise construction work. Maintain an adequate number of
properly trained Supervisor of Shipbuilding (SUPSHIP) personnel.
 Provide stability for industry, in part by using, where possible, multiyear
procurement (MYP) or block buy contracting.
 Maintain a capable government acquisition workforce that understands what
it is buying, as well as the above points.
Identifying these lessons is arguably not the hard part—most if not all these points have been
cited for years. The hard part, arguably, is living up to them without letting circumstances lead
program-execution efforts away from these guidelines.
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Appendix F. Some Considerations Relating to
Warranties in Shipbuilding and Other Defense
Acquisition
This appendix presents some considerations relating to warranties in shipbuilding and other
defense acquisition.
In discussions of Navy (and also Coast Guard) shipbuilding, one question that sometimes arises is
whether including a warranty in a shipbuilding contract is preferable to not including one. The
question can arise, for example, in connection with a GAO finding that “the Navy structures
shipbuilding contracts so that it pays shipbuilders to build ships as part of the construction
process and then pays the same shipbuilders a second time to repair the ship when construction
defects are discovered.”49
Including a warranty in a shipbuilding contract (or a contract for building some other kind of
defense end item), while potentially valuable, might not always be preferable to not including
one—it depends on the circumstances of the acquisition, and it is not necessarily a valid criticism
of an acquisition program to state that it is using a contract that does not include a warranty (or a
weaker form of a warranty rather than a stronger one).
Including a warranty generally shifts to the contractor the risk of having to pay for fixing
problems with earlier work. Although that in itself could be deemed desirable from the
government’s standpoint, a contractor negotiating a contract that will have a warranty will
incorporate that risk into its price, and depending on how much the contractor might charge for
doing that, it is possible that the government could wind up paying more in total for acquiring the
item (including fixing problems with earlier work on that item) than it would have under a
contract without a warranty.
When a warranty is not included in the contract and the government pays later on to fix problems
with earlier work, those payments can be very visible, which can invite critical comments from
observers. But that does not mean that including a warranty in the contract somehow frees the
government from paying to fix problems with earlier work. In a contract that includes a warranty,
the government will indeed pay something to fix problems with earlier work—but it will make
the payment in the less-visible (but still very real) form of the up-front charge for including the
warranty, and that charge might be more than what it would have cost the government, under a
contract without a warranty, to pay later on for fixing those problems.
From a cost standpoint, including a warranty in the contract might or might not be preferable,
depending on the risk that there will be problems with earlier work that need fixing, the potential
cost of fixing such problems, and the cost of including the warranty in the contract. The point is
that the goal of avoiding highly visible payments for fixing problems with earlier work and the
goal of minimizing the cost to the government of fixing problems with earlier work are separate

49 See Government Accountability Office, Navy Shipbuilding[:] Past Performance Provides Valuable Lessons for
Future Investments, GAO-18-238SP, June 2018, p. 21. A graphic on page 21 shows a GAO finding that the
government was financially responsible for shipbuilder deficiencies in 96% of the cases examined by GAO, and that
the shipbuilder was financially responsible for shipbuilder deficiencies in 4% of the cases.
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and different goals, and that pursuing the first goal can sometimes work against achieving the
second goal.50
The Department of Defense’s guide on the use of warranties states the following:
Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 46.7 states that “the use of warranties is not
mandatory.” However, if the benefits to be derived from the warranty are commensurate
with the cost of the warranty, the CO [contracting officer] should consider placing it in the
contract. In determining whether a warranty is appropriate for a specific acquisition, FAR
Subpart 46.703 requires the CO to consider the nature and use of the supplies and services,
the cost, the administration and enforcement, trade practices, and reduced requirements.
The rationale for using a warranty should be documented in the contract file....
In determining the value of a warranty, a CBA [cost-benefit analysis] is used to measure
the life cycle costs of the system with and without the warranty. A CBA is required to
determine if the warranty will be cost beneficial. CBA is an economic analysis, which
basically compares the Life Cycle Costs (LCC) of the system with and without the warranty
to determine if warranty coverage will improve the LCCs. In general, five key factors will
drive the results of the CBA: cost of the warranty + cost of warranty administration +
compatibility with total program efforts + cost of overlap with Contractor support +
intangible
savings.
Effective
warranties
integrate
reliability,
maintainability,
supportability, availability, and life-cycle costs. Decision factors that must be evaluated
include the state of the weapon system technology, the size of the warranted population,
the likelihood that field performance requirements can be achieved, and the warranty
period of performance.51

50 It can also be noted that the country’s two largest builders of Navy ships—General Dynamics (GD) and Huntington
Ingalls Industries (HII)—derive about 60% and 96%, respectively, of their revenues from U.S. government work. (See
General Dynamics, 2016 Annual Report, page 9 of Form 10-K [PDF page 15 of 88]) and Huntington Ingalls Industries,
2016 Annual Report, page 5 of Form 10-K [PDF page 19 of 134]). These two shipbuilders operate the only U.S.
shipyards currently capable of building several major types of Navy ships, including submarines, aircraft carriers, large
surface combatants, and amphibious ships. Thus, even if a warranty in a shipbuilding contract with one of these firms
were to somehow mean that the government did not have pay under the terms of that contract—either up front or later
on—for fixing problems with earlier work done under that contract, there would still be a question as to whether the
government would nevertheless wind up eventually paying much of that cost as part of the price of one or more future
contracts the government may have that firm.
51 Department of Defense, Department of Defense Warranty Guide, Version 1.0, September 2009, accessed July 13,
2017, at https://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/pdi/uid/docs/departmentofdefensewarrantyguide[1].doc.
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Appendix G. Some Considerations Relating to
Avoiding Procurement Cost Growth vs. Minimizing
Procurement Costs
This appendix presents some considerations relating to avoiding procurement cost growth vs.
minimizing procurement costs in shipbuilding and other defense acquisition.
The affordability challenge posed by the Navy’s shipbuilding plans can reinforce the strong
oversight focus on preventing or minimizing procurement cost growth in Navy shipbuilding
programs, which is one expression of a strong oversight focus on preventing or minimizing cost
growth in DOD acquisition programs in general. This oversight focus may reflect in part an
assumption that avoiding or minimizing procurement cost growth is always synonymous with
minimizing procurement cost. It is important to note, however, that as paradoxical as it may seem,
avoiding or minimizing procurement cost growth is not always synonymous with minimizing
procurement cost, and that a sustained, singular focus on avoiding or minimizing procurement
cost growth might sometimes lead to higher procurement costs for the government.
How could this be? Consider the example of a design for the lead ship of a new class of Navy
ships. The construction cost of this new design is uncertain, but is estimated to be likely
somewhere between Point A (a minimum possible figure) and Point D (a maximum possible
figure). (Point D, in other words, would represent a cost estimate with a 100% confidence factor,
meaning there is a 100% chance that the cost would come in at or below that level.) If the Navy
wanted to avoid cost growth on this ship, it could simply set the ship’s procurement cost at Point
D. Industry would likely be happy with this arrangement, and there likely would be no cost
growth on the ship.
The alternative strategy open to the Navy is to set the ship’s target procurement cost at some
figure between Points A and D—call it Point B—and then use that more challenging target cost to
place pressure on industry to sharpen its pencils so as to find ways to produce the ship at that
lower cost. (Navy officials sometimes refer to this as “pressurizing” industry.) In this example, it
might turn out that industry efforts to reduce production costs are not successful enough to build
the ship at the Point B cost. As a result, the ship experiences one or more rounds of procurement
cost growth, and the ship’s procurement cost rises over time from Point B to some higher
figure—call it Point C.
Here is the rub: Point C, in spite of incorporating one or more rounds of cost growth, might
nevertheless turn out to be lower than Point D, because Point C reflected efforts by the
shipbuilder to find ways to reduce production costs that the shipbuilder might have put less
energy into pursuing if the Navy had simply set the ship’s procurement cost initially at Point D.
Setting the ship’s cost at Point D, in other words, may eliminate the risk of cost growth on the
ship, but does so at the expense of creating a risk of the government paying more for the ship than
was actually necessary. DOD could avoid cost growth on new procurement programs starting
tomorrow by simply setting costs for those programs at each program’s equivalent of Point D.
But as a result of this strategy, DOD could well wind up leaving money on the table in some
instances—of not, in other words, minimizing procurement costs.
DOD does not have to set a cost precisely at Point D to create a potential risk in this regard. A risk
of leaving money on the table, for example, is a possible downside of requiring DOD to budget
for its acquisition programs at something like an 80% confidence factor—an approach that some
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observers have recommended—because a cost at the 80% confidence factor is a cost that is likely
fairly close to Point D.
Procurement cost growth is often embarrassing for DOD and industry, and can damage their
credibility in connection with future procurement efforts. Procurement cost growth can also
disrupt congressional budgeting by requiring additional appropriations to pay for something
Congress thought it had fully funded in a prior year. For this reason, there is a legitimate public
policy value to pursuing a goal of having less rather than more procurement cost growth.
Procurement cost growth, however, can sometimes be in part the result of DOD efforts to use
lower initial cost targets as a means of pressuring industry to reduce production costs—efforts
that, notwithstanding the cost growth, might be partially successful. A sustained, singular focus
on avoiding or minimizing cost growth, and of punishing DOD for all instances of cost growth,
could discourage DOD from using lower initial cost targets as a means of pressurizing industry,
which could deprive DOD of a tool for controlling procurement costs.
The point here is not to excuse away cost growth, because cost growth can occur in a program for
reasons other than DOD’s attempt to pressurize industry. Nor is the point to abandon the goal of
seeking lower rather than higher procurement cost growth, because, as noted above, there is a
legitimate public policy value in pursuing this goal. The point, rather, is to recognize that this goal
is not always synonymous with minimizing procurement cost, and that a possibility of some
amount of cost growth might be expected as part of an optimal government strategy for
minimizing procurement cost. Recognizing that the goals of seeking lower rather than higher cost
growth and of minimizing procurement cost can sometimes be in tension with one another can
lead to an approach that takes both goals into consideration. In contrast, an approach that is
instead characterized by a sustained, singular focus on avoiding and minimizing cost growth may
appear virtuous, but in the end may wind up costing the government more.
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Appendix H. Size of the Navy and Navy
Shipbuilding Rate
Size of the Navy
Table H-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.52 The Navy fell below 300
battle force ships in August 2003 and as of April 26, 2019, included 289 battle force ships.
As discussed in Appendix C, 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.

52 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 H-1. Total Number of Ships in Navy Since FY1948
FYa
Number
FYa
Number
FYa
Number
FYa
Number
1948
737
1970
769
1992
466
2014
289
1949
690
1971
702
1993
435
2015
271
1950
634
1972
654
1994
391
2016
275
1951
980
1973
584
1995
373
2017
279
1952
1,097
1974
512
1996
356
2018
286
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.

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Shipbuilding Rate
Table H-2 shows past (FY1982-FY2019) and requested or programmed (FY2020-FY2024) rates
of Navy ship procurement.
Table H-2. Battle Force Ships Procured or Requested, FY1982-FY2024
(Procured in FY1982-FY2019; requested for FY2020, and programmed for FY2021-FY2024)
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
4
5
3
8
7
10
11
11
8
8
9
9
9
13
20 21 22 23 24

12 10
9
13 11

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 nonbattle force ships
that do not count toward the 355-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).
Notes: (1) The totals shown for FY2006, FY2007, and FY2008, reflect the cancellation two LCSs funded
in FY2006, another two LCSs funded in FY2007, and an LCS funded in FY2008.
(2) 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.
(3) The figures shown for FY2019 and FY2020 reflect a Navy decision to show the aircraft carrier CVN-81
as a ship to be procured in FY2020 rather than a ship that was procured in FY2019. Congress, as part of its
action on the Navy’s proposed FY2019 budget, authorized the procurement of CVN-81 in FY2019.

Author Information

Ronald O'Rourke

Specialist in Naval Affairs

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Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan
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under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other
than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in
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