Building a Bigger Fleet

Earlier this week, the Secretary of the Navy ordered a work stoppage on LCS-3, one of two littoral combat ships currently under production. The first of these ships, the Freedom, has already been built, and work will continue on a second, which is being built by General Dynamics using a different hull design. All work on the LCS-3, however, will stop for a period of no less than 90 days while the Navy tries to resolve the source of various cost overruns which have more than doubled the unit cost of the ship. Right now the Navy has 276 Deployable Battle Force Ships, down from 592 at the end of the Cold War. In 2005, Admiral Michael Mullen announced a fleet target of 313 ships, including 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and 143 surface combatants. The low-cost LCS, with a price tag of just $400 million (a third of the cost of an Arleigh Burke class destroyer), was to be critical to this effort, with the Navy set to order as many as 55 by the end of the program–a number which would comprise more than 17 percent of the total fleet. The Navy’s other major shipbuilding program was to be the DDG 1000, previously known as DD(X). DDG class ships would total 69 ships, with 7 of those being the high-priced high-tech DDG 1000s and 62 Arleigh Burke class destroyers. Highlights of the DDG 1000 include a reduced radar cross section, dual-band radar, a PVLS missile system that doubles as a type of reactive armor, and a futuristic Advanced Gun System. The DDG 1000 is a huge leap forward, but, like the LCS, the program has been fraught with cost overruns, though of a different magnitude. The first two DDG 1000s will come in at close to $3.3 billion each. Also like the LCS, the DDG 1000 will rely on gas turbines, rather than a nuclear reactor, to generate electric power for all mechanical systems, including propulsion. When the Democrats won back Congress, Rep. Gene Taylor, the incoming chair of the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee announced his intention to pursue a policy of “Shipbuilding, shipbuilding. Getting the numbers of the fleet up . . . Numbers do matter.” Taylor’s concern, however, was that the Navy’s “Achilles heel . . . is fuel.” To that end, Taylor said he would push the Navy to incorporate nuclear power into its ship designs wherever possible, including a possible redesign of the DDG 1000, despite the fact that oil would have to cost more than twice what it does now to justify the expense of using nuclear fuel to power a ship that size. Where do other Democratic members of the committee stand on ship numbers? That’s hard to say, as most did not return repeated calls for comment. Of those that did, Rep. Brad Ellsworth would only say that he was “looking forward to committee hearings,” and freshman Rep. Joe Sestak, who not long ago retired from the Navy as a vice admiral, passed along this statement in response to my inquiry:

Since Joe has been gone from the Defense Department for over a year, he has no set number right now except to say the most important issue is the capability that is required to win, not the capacity. Over the next few months, he wants to listen and re-look at what is the capability that is needed to meet the mission; then, assess the most cost-efficient joint way to package the requisite battle-space awareness and combat weapon systems into platforms. The number of ships is the output of that process, not the input, while taking into account the maintenance of a ship building/combat system industrial base.

While an increase in fleet size to 313 ships would certainly mark a significant increase in capability, the Navy’s current capacity is impressive. According to Robert Work of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, the Navy we have right now could “knock the snot out of any competitor.” Work says the Navy now has “far more strike power” than the 600 ship Navy of 1989. With 10,000 missile cells, and a carrier fleet capable of hitting just as many targets in a single day, the U.S. Navy is without a serious rival. During Pax Britannia, the British navy understood supremacy to mean a force size larger than the next two largest navies combined. The United States Navy has more ships than the next 17 navies combined. Given the overwhelming superiority of the U.S. Navy, it makes sense to put the LCS on hold until an appropriate price point can be reached. Work found the delays “very troubling,” but speculated they may be related to the ship being among the first of its class more than anything else. Specifically, Work said a faulty reduction gear which put the program behind schedule may have been an expensive one-off problem. Still, problems with the LCS don’t bode well for the DDG 1000. And with regard to the enormously expensive DDG 1000, Work said he was still a fan of the ship, but compared its procurement to a Super Bowl champion spending big money to bring in Peyton Manning for a game against a Pee Wee league team–the Navy can defeat any potential adversary with or without it.

The Lockheed Martin version of the LCS