Navy faces budget dilemma
- From: "Andy Tompkins" <andytompkins@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 8 Oct 2005 16:30:10 -0700
http://www.dailypress.com/business/local/dp-98835sy0oct07,0,7660723.story?coll=dp-business-localheads
In order to avoid financial strain, the sea service may need to reduce
capabilities of future ships.
BY PETER DUJARDIN
247-4749
October 7, 2005
VIRGINIA BEACH -- The Navy has put itself in a bind by buying so few
submarines in recent years - and now risks making the same mistake on a
new class of destroyers, a key Naval analyst said Thursday.
Ron O'Rourke, an analyst with the Congressional Research Service, said
the lack of consistent ship purchasing of recent years could lead to a
severe strain in the shipbuilding budget within seven years or so.
Unless much more money than expected comes from Congress, nearly the
entire shipbuilding account stands to be eaten up by submarines and
destroyer purchases, O'Rourke said.
Two subs and two destroyers will be needed by 2012 to keep up with
ships leaving the fleet. Optimistically, O'Rourke said, those four new
ships will cost $8 billion.
Pessimistically, he said, they'll cost $12 billion - more than what's
typically spent on the entire shipbuilding budget now. Planned
purchases of a small vessel called the littoral combat ship could bring
that total to $13 billion.
"Now you've used up your entire prospective shipbuilding budget and you
haven't bought anything else" - such as aircraft carriers, carrier
refueling costs, amphibious assault ships, and other surface combat
ships, O'Rourke said during a panel discussion at a U.S. Naval
Institute Joint Warfare Symposium at the Virginia Beach Convention
Center.
The Navy will have to double sub purchases to two a year - and continue
that pace for 12 years - to maintain the current fleet of 54
submarines, O'Rourke said. Unless the cost of the Virginia-class
submarines fall significantly from their current $2.6 billion price
tag, that will be a tall order.
Alternatively, the Navy could find a way to keep its aging fleet Los
Angles-class attack boats around past their expected 33-year life span,
but that's also considered a difficult task.
Cutting construction costs and improving efficiencies in the joint
teaming arrangement between Northrop Grumman Newport News and General
Dynamics Electric Boat will help, but "only at the margins," O'Rourke
said.
"The Navy will have to pull a rabbit out of a hat," he said.
In the end, O'Rourke said, it may all come down to tough choices: The
Navy might have to reduce the capabilities of its new subs or watch the
size of its attack sub fleet fall - even if Navy commanders don't think
that's a good idea.
And what's true of submarines, O'Rourke said, is also true of the
DD(X), the replacement for the Arleigh-Burke class of destroyers.
"We're going to have the same kind of limited options," he said of the
new destroyer. "The ship is only really affordable at one per year."
He suggested the Navy should determine the most critical new
technologies and capabilities of that ship and eliminate the rest.
That could cut 25-30 percent off the cost of the ship, he speculated.
It's unclear what the Navy would think of such reductions on the DD(X)
- or "de-scoping" in shipbuilding speak.
As for subs, a well-placed official at the Naval Sea Systems Command,
which oversees ship construction, had earlier told the Daily Press that
the Navy was considering some submarine capability reductions. Some new
subs, he said, may be made particularly adept at certain missions,
while other subs would specialize in other missions.
But one of Thursday's panelists, Navy Vice Adm. Charles L. Munns, the
commander of U.S. Submarine Forces Atlantic Fleet, said the Navy still
believes it can get to two submarines a year by 2012 without reducing
capabilities.
The strategy, he said, is to reduce building costs and reduce redundant
systems on the ship.
"We believe the Virginia is exactly what we need," Munns said. "To put
these submarines in these places they need to go, they need the whole
package."
There's little chance of keeping the Los Angeles-class boats around
longer than their expected 33-year lifespans, he said.
"We're still looking at it, but the problem is, at that point the fuel
tank is empty."
.
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