Next Defense Budget Could Sink More Ships Than Pearl Harbor Attack
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Leaked “sneak peeks” of the Biden administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2023 paint a grim budget season for the Navy. While the public won’t see the budget until late March or early April, Pentagon rumors suggest the Department of Defense is determined to strip the Navy to the bone, targeting both the legacy naval force structure and unprofitable vessels for termination.
In short, Budget 2023 risks sinking many Navy ships, paving the way for new underwater and unmanned platforms.
First ‘leak’ of fiscal year 2023 budget season suggests Department of Defense will offer to decommission up to 10 troubled US Freedom Littoral-class combat ships. If that happens, the cuts will be a death sentence. By May 2022only ten out of fifteen Freedom class ships in the “Program of Record” will be in service. If the cuts materialize, the remaining five, many of which are nearing completion, will likely never be accepted by the Navy and instead offered at a reduced price to Greece, Saudi Arabia or another suitable ally. and able to handle finicky, short-range ships.
As this author wrote two years ago, killing the weak Freedom class has some meaning. The ships were deeply troubled from the outset, expensive to operate, and hampered by regular maintenance issues and a class-wide lack of propulsion. With the class-wide propulsion fault, the Navy and Industry team faltered for nearly two years, “troubleshooting” it. As the Freedom The class team struggled to settle on the repair lanes, the program was frozen in place. The Navy’s strange tolerance for a long series of Freedom Class weaknesses deserve closer examination – if the mastermind behind the program was an organization other than the powerful defense contractor Lockheed Martin
LMT
As this author has warned, the last Freedom The class fix, announced with great fanfare by the Navy last November, may not be as robust as advertised. Rather than rushing the first “fixed” Freedom out of the frozen Great Lakes on active duty and preparations for deployed service in the Persian Gulf, the future USS Minneapolis St. Paul (LCS 21) has dragged on and now looks set to talk about the Great Lakes until at least June, about seven months after delivery. Even more worrying, the repairs of those which have not yet been delivered Cooperstown (LCS 23) seem to be late, because the Navy’s stated purpose of a delivery in February has come and gone without fanfare.
This late push by the Department of Defense to kill those in trouble Freedom The course program should surprise no one. The Department of Defense telegraphed that these reductions were coming nearly a year ago, when the Biden administration’s first fleet plan reduced previous projections for small combatants from 60 to 67 ships to a modest 40 to 45 ships. In February, the chief of naval operations proposed a compromise requirement to have some 50 small combatants in service by 2040.
The Navy being already engaged in a future fleet of 18 Independence Class littoral combat ships (LCS-2) and at least 20 highly anticipated Constellation Class frigates (FFG-62), there is very little room to justify spending money to keep a handful of frigates that are already expensive to operate Freedom Class ships in service.
But the proposal Freedom Class carnage, bad as it is, may just be an appetizer.
The US Navy must prepare for even deeper cuts.
Great fighters get that sinking feeling
The Department of Defense has signaled through more than two administrations that it intends to downsize the large US surface combat fleet. The latest large surface combatant requirement, half-heartedly put forward in February by the US Navy’s chief of naval operations, Admiral Mike Gilday, is for 60 ships.
That’s a huge reduction.
Today, 93 great fighters – a mix of 22 Ticonderoga Class Cruisers (CG 47), 1 Zumwalt Class destroyer (DDG 1000) and 70 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers (DDG 51) – are in the battle fleet. twenty more Burke are either “in service, special”, or under construction, or already authorized for construction.
Despite all the recent talk of the Navy’s future great surface combatant, the Pentagon has no incentive to act quickly. To meet the goal of 60 large surface combatants, the Department of Defense could ask the US Navy to take a notional two-decade “vacation” from building large surface combatants, which would halt the purchase of new ones. Burke. Assuming the three Zumwalt Class destroyers remain in service, even after 20 years of attrition, the oldest remaining destroyer in the large 60-storey surface combat fleet would be a relatively lively 39-year-old USS Howard (DDG 83), one of the first five IIA flights Burke in commissions.
If the Ministry of Defense is, as it has repeatedly signaled, determined to “disinvest in order to reinvest”, a massive “en bloc” withdrawal from the Ticonderoga Class cruisers and all 28 former I flights and II flights Burke (characterized by their lack of aeronautical facilities) could well be in the cards.
An unprepared Washington will respond with histrionics, but, at this point, the writing is on the wall. The only question is when, exactly, is the Department of Defense ordering the mass withdrawal of major aging US surface combatants.
Cut off unpopular auxiliaries
Other less efficient or unpopular craft can also be retired early. The twelve Spearhead The Expeditionary Class Fast Transports (EPFs) currently in the Battle Fleet have enormous potential, but these small “theater” transports have failed to capture the imagination of fleet sponsors. They are not integrated into innovative day-to-day operations, and Military Sealift Command hates the cost of maintaining these underutilized and misunderstood auxiliaries.
Although the fast transport fleet is still building a total of 15 ships, small transports are already “leaving” the combat fleet. Last year, two of the fast transports, the nine-year-old USNS Spearhead (T-EPF-1) and the seven-year-old USNS autumn river (T-EPF-4), were effectively scrapped, placed in an ignominious “reduced operating state 45”. Reduced Operating Status 45 – where the ship needs 45 days to start after an activation order – is the maximum amount of time a ship can be placed in Reduced Operating Status while still being “counted” as a member combat fleet asset.
Rumors suggest that all Spearhead Expeditionary-class fast transports outside of the medical variants that have yet to be built may well be over budget this year and relegated to storage status.
Both Navy Expeditionary Transfer Docks, USNS Montford Point (T-ESD 1) and USNS Jean Glenn (T-ESD 2), would also be on the chopping block. Designed for the old Marine Corps “Sebasing” strategy, and meant to be a sort of floating jetty, sitting offshore, the ships lost interest from the Marine Corps and failed to live up to their expectations. The eight-year-old USNS John Glen is already sitting in port, in reduced working order, and the USNS Montford Point can follow.
These are brutal cuts.
These will be a few dark years. Burdened by a huge bill for expensive new ballistic missile submarines, and hampered by a strategic vacuum and less than dynamic leadership, the US Navy has few options for the future. Some members of Congress may scream, but, in all honesty, no help is coming. While pro-Navy lobby shops have popped up all over Washington, they are disunited, too busy pursuing their own narrow interests to make a real difference. To survive, the Navy needs another John Lehman, uniting behind an outspoken and polarizing leader who is unafraid to present, defend and fund a comprehensive maritime strategy for modern times.
Until then, the Navy will continue to face budget “Pearl Harbors,” where many quality, usable, and much-needed ships are sunk to pay for naval modernization, military expansion, and new naval ventures. ‘Air Force.