Posted on 11/28/2018 10:10:59 AM PST by blam
The Virginia-class attack submarine USS North Dakota during bravo sea trials in the Atlantic Ocean, August 18, 2013. Reuters/ Navy
Lawmakers on Tuesday pressed US Navy officials to explain what the service is doing to fix its shortage of attack submarines.
Navy officials testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on Seapower that the service is on track to achieve a 355-ship fleet by 2034.
Lawmakers, however, were concerned about the more immediate problem of the Navy's submarine shortfall.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, said that retired Adm. Harry Harris, former head of US Pacific Command, had testified that "only half his requirement for attack submarines in the Pacific theater was being met."
"This challenge will only grow worse in the 2020s as attack submarines retire at a faster rate," Rounds said. "How is the Navy planning to mitigate the attack submarine shortfall in the 2020s?"
Los Angeles-class attack submarine Tucson US Navy Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Tucson prepares to moor at Fleet Activities Yokosuka, December 1, 2017. US Navy
James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said the most "looming shortfall ahead of us in terms of capability is in attack subs."
Geurts said the service is ramping up Virginia-class submarine production to two per year, with the potential of producing more than two down the road.
The Navy is also looking at where it can do "service-life extensions on some of our existing submarines," he said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, referring to a recent Government Accountability Office report on maintenance delays in the attack sub fleet, said that since "2008, 14 attack submarines have spent a combined 61 months — 1,891 days — idling while waiting to enter ship yards for maintenance."
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Close down a couple dozen useless bases in europe and use the saved billions to fix the damn subs and build a dozen more......Damn brain dead administrators are in special interests groups pockets.
There can never be too many sub sailors.
2 per year for the Virginia class is a nice start, but 3 is better.
And yard availability for maintenance is a huge step forward. Sitting idle waiting for your turn in the yard is silly.
Fixing the problem is entirely on Congress. They need to allocate more money to repair nObama’s sabotage of the military.
I think that Valerie Jarrett had a meeting with the head of every federal government agency after Obama was elected. She asked them,
“What can your agency do to help the Democrat Party?”
I think that President Trump should have a similar meeting and ask them,
“What can your agency do to help us win the war in Afghanistan?”
The war in Afghanistan is either important enough to have a meeting like that, or we should get out of there.
The focus needs to be on winning.
(do I really???)
Or subs. Maybe Da Nang Dick would also like to impersonate a mechanic and go man a wrench to help out.
You'd be hard pressed to find as many a dozen of remaining bases in Europe. The U.S. Army in Europe was dismantled years ago. Recommending cannibalizing what's left of our Defense Establishment is not a good option. Especially when the new Democrat House will be planning to steal from the Defense budget to build model villages for illegal immigrants in Republican districts, complete with high end campsites to bring in border crossers for special occasions, like elections.
I agree. A simple question for Pres Trump and the DoD - "What's the mission in Afghanistan?"
> Sitting idle waiting for your turn in the yard is silly.
Yep, and what if a wartime surge is needed?
“Yep, and what if a wartime surge is needed?”
The those boats get under weigh, whether maintenance is on the schedule or not.
They have starved the military for years and want to know why they have not spent money for needed resources?
This is as stupid as you can possibly get.
Sub shortages are one thing, sub sailor and officer shortages are another.
of course the solution lies in building or licensing AIG diesel subs, but then the Navy would not be all nuclear and naval brass heads would explode
Most of the replies are all around the problem. It’s all of the above. Not enough money during sequestration, riding boats hard and putting them away wet, trying to stretch maintenance to the limit u til it all builds up causing delays, and limited industrial capacity to build/fix. There’s is no easy fix and simply throwing money at the problem won’t solve it.
Money builds more boats and incentivizes more maintenance facilities.
So yeah, money solves the problem.
The U.S hasn't built a conventional sub for 60 years, so the know-how isn't there anymore. And you have only two shipyards capable of building subs of any type, and those shipyards have a limited capacity. So building a AIP submarine will take up a slip that could be used for a Virginia-class submarine or a Columbia-class submarine. You won't build your sub fleet any faster.
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