Congress will get its chance this week to weigh in on the way the U.S. Navy buys its ships — and how few it’s been buying. But members of the House Projection Forces subcommittee couldn’t refrain from boring in on the subject during a March 2 hearing supposedly devoted to Navy research and development efforts.
“That’s a bad decision,” ranking member Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., said of Navy acquisition chief John Young’s effort to restructure the $18.25 billion DD(X) destroyer construction program. “I see nothing good coming of that.”
Referring to the skimpy four ships in the Navy’s 2006 budget request, Taylor asked Young, three admirals and two Marine Corps generals, “Why aren’t you standing on the table asking for the Navy to get a fair shake?” Then, in reference to the Bush administration, he added, “I think someone above you thinks ships aren’t important.”
Taylor, whose Mississippi district includes Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls shipyard at Pascagoula, asked why nearly all of the Navy’s major ship and aircraft programs were cut or delayed in the 2006 budget submission. “Are we creating vulnerability 10 to 15 years from now, when countries like China are hitting their stride?”
Young cited overall budget constraints as the reason for the program delays. Vice Adm. Joseph Sestak, deputy chief of naval operations (DCNO) for warfare requirements and programs, and Vice Adm. Lewis Crenshaw, DCNO for resources and requirements, said the delays were acceptable.
But Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, deputy commandant for programs and resources, was more sanguine.
“I’m certainly concerned about the continuing ability of the U.S. Navy to sustain forces forward,” he said, referring to the decline from 12 to nine in the number of new LPD-17 amphibious transports to be built, and the possible corresponding reduction in the number of expeditionary strike groups. “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis said the Marine Corps still needs the Navy to be able to transport three Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEBs) instead of the 2.5 it now can carry. The Navy’s current amphibious construction plan can’t meet that demand, said Mattis, who heads the Marines’ Combat Development Command.
Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., has scheduled a subcommittee hearing devoted to Navy shipbuilding. Young, Sestak, Crenshaw and Magnus are scheduled to return March 10 as Congress responds to the February call by Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations, for hearings on the issue.
No one is happy with the direction Navy shipbuilding has taken. As ships grow more expensive — new submarines cost $2.5 billion each, LPD-17s $1.3 billion and estimates for the DD(X) range from near $3 billion and up — the service has struggled to prioritize where to spend the average $10.5 billion per year it can expect for new ships.
The decline in ship numbers and frequent program changes has meant the major suppliers — General Dynamics’ yards at Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, Electric Boat, Groton, Conn., and National Steel and Shipbuilding, San Diego; and Northrop Grumman’s shipyards at Newport News, Va., Pascagoula, Miss., and New Orleans, — complain about the lack of predictability in their work, making it difficult to sustain a skilled labor force and buy materials.
Firing Back
While Congress is teeing off at Navy officials on the topic, many within the service, including Clark and Young, view Capitol Hill as part of the problem. The Navy, for example, had planned to order the first DD(X) this month using research and development funds. But Congress last year mandated the ship be built with procurement funding. That money’s just not available right now, Navy officials said. The ship now is planned for 2007.
Similarly, Congress — led by Bartlett — was concerned that the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program was moving too fast, and scratched Navy plans to build prototype ships in consecutive years. Now, Lockheed Martin has been forced to delay building its second LCS, planned for 2006, to 2007.
Bartlett asked Young how the service plans “to use the time” gained by the delays.
On the high-technology DD(X), Young said the service would continue with detail design of the ship and that a new radar system now would be ready before the ship’s hull was complete.
But on the LCS, Young didn’t give in to Bartlett’s suggestion that the delay would give the service “more time for experimentation.”
“There’s a lot of operating analysis that tells us we’re building the right hull to start with,” Young said, denying significant changes would be needed in the ships. •
E-mail: ccavas@defensenews.com.
