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Navy denies interest in new force options

The Navy’s top strategist has floated to the chief of naval operations three alternatives to the service’s current 30-year shipbuilding plan that if adopted would radically reshape American naval power.

The three options are contained in a 26-page briefing titled “Three Futures, One Navy, A Portfolio Analysis” by Vice Adm. John Morgan, the service’s strategy chief, which was e-mailed to Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, just before the Thanksgiving holiday.

The force structure options — a 263-ship fleet optimized for major combat operations against a peer competitor; a 534-ship shaping force tailored for coalition and maritime security operations; and a 474-ship balanced force able to perform high- and low-end missions — would replace the current 30-year shipbuilding plan. Each option is based in part on the findings of a 2005 “table top exercise” involving Lockheed Martin, the maker of the Aegis combat system that equips the Navy’s cruisers and destroyers, as well as one of the two builders of the service’s new Littoral Combat Ship.

The current 30-year plan aims to yield a 313-ship fleet by 2013 — up from 280 currently — assuming projected investment levels remain unchanged and existing programs remain on budget and schedule.

But Navy spokesmen are already dismissing Morgan’s brief as just a think piece.

“The proposal has not been vetted among the Navy leadership,” said Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Navy spokesman. “The hypothetical numbers listed in the brief are ludicrous and are not reflective of Navy leadership’s thinking or intent and has no bearing on the budget or POM (Program Objective Memorandum). The brief is based on a 2-year-old war game and is not being used to recommend force structure options.”

Analysts and executives, however, questioned the Navy’s strong denial, asking why outdated or ludicrous information would be forwarded to the CNO from one of his top officers unless someone involved in the process viewed it as important.

“Adm. Roughead has created a tone with the senior staff in which he encourages us to provide him thought pieces, and this brief was nothing more than an e-mail sent to the CNO by one of his senior staff to let him know that it was out there,” said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp, the Navy’s chief spokesman.

Each of the notional fleets increases amphibious ships but cuts submarines, while one increases the number of aircraft carriers. Two of the options would dramatically increase the number of small corvettes, patrol craft and riverine forces.

The briefing assumes the Navy’s ship construction budgets will remain constant at about $12.5 billion annually over the coming three decades for a total of $377 billion. But that $12.5 billion figure, sources said, is below the roughly $15 billion annual shipbuilding budget that the service has previously said it would achieve over the coming years, which is critical to the execution of the current 30-year plan.

Each of the options assume the following unit costs: nuclear-powered aircraft carriers at $5 billion, big-deck amphibious helicopter carriers of either LHA or LHD classes at $2.5 billion, amphibious ships of LSD or LPD classes at $1 billion, cruisers and destroyers at $1 billion, corvettes of the LCS class at $500 million, patrol craft at $100 million, riverine squadrons at $100 million, submarines at $2.5 billion, and auxiliaries at $500 million.

* Major combat operations. A force of 263 ships, smaller than the 313-ship fleet that Roughead has said he wants, tailored for battle against a peer competitor. This fleet would be composed of 12 aircraft carriers, 13 big-deck amphibious helicopter carriers, 26 amphibious ships, 81 cruisers and destroyers, 54 corvettes, 21 auxiliaries and 56 submarines including attack, ballistic and cruise missiles boats.

* Shaping force. A fleet of 534 ships, mostly corvettes and patrol boats better suited to littoral, maritime security and partnership operations. This force would be composed of six aircraft carriers, 24 big-deck amphibious helicopter carriers, 48 amphibious ships, 48 cruisers and destroyers, 161 corvettes, 200 patrol craft, 30 riverine squadrons, 15 auxiliaries, and 32 submarines of all classes.

* Balanced force. A fleet of 474 ships able to conduct operations from high-end battle to low-end counterterrorism and maritime security. This force would be composed of nine aircraft carriers, 23 big-deck amphibious helicopter carriers, 46 amphibious ships, 57 cruisers and destroyers, 132 corvettes, 160 patrol craft, 20 riverine squadrons, 15 auxiliaries and 32 submarines of all classes.

“Several of proposed ship force levels in these three plans are significantly different from what the Navy has been proposing under the current 313-ship plan,” said Ron O’Rourke, a naval analyst at the Congressional Research Service. “The 534- and 474-ship proposals are the most substantially different ship force-structure plans from DoD to come to light since the alternative fleet architecture proposed by the Office of Force Transformation (OFT) in a report submitted to Congress in 2005.”

The document was generated to address Roughead’s budget concerns, sources said. During the course of briefings after taking office, sources said Roughead became alarmed about the service’s future budgets and its ability to field the kind of forces it needs to support its new maritime strategy.

Last week, Roughead said the service needs “appetite suppressants” when it comes to its ship requirements. Critics have said that Navy cost overruns are often driven by the service’s inability to control requirements changes in its designs.

Morgan’s options were intended to stimulate creative thinking, sources added, and link the maritime strategy to a more stable and predictable construction plan better shaped to address future threats and challenges. Morgan’s options, however, have irritated Navy program officials who oversee the service’s shipbuilding program.

Unveiled in October and billed as a joint effort among the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, the maritime strategy argues the U.S. needs full spectrum maritime forces able to handle a vast range of challenges. The strategy was criticized, however, by analysts, as well as some within the Navy for not including a detailed, and more realistic, shipbuilding plan beyond the current 30-year that many analysts claim is simply unachievable.

While officials are downplaying the options, Morgan’s brief is fueling debate within the Navy and the industry that serves it.

Each of the options constitutes compromises. The MCO Navy would be optimized for high-end combat, but lack the numbers needed to address lower intensity global needs. The shaping fleet trades combat power for numbers, posing risks should the U.S. need to face a strong competitor in the future. That leaves the balanced force as the happy medium.

“Adopting any of these three plans could raise questions about the Navy’s argument since early 2006 that it had achieved stability in its force structure and associated shipbuilding plans,” O’Rourke said. “Adopting the second or third plans in particular could have significant implications for the Navy's shipbuilding plan, and consequently for various parts of the shipbuilding industrial base. These numbers could cause anxiety in certain quarters.”

While amphibs appear to be a big winner in all three scenarios and surface combatants strongly represented in two of them, the big loser appears to be the submarine force, which boasts the successful Virginia-class attack submarine program. Both major surface combatant programs, the DDG-1000 destroyer and LCS, have been criticized for cost increases.

The cost of the Zumwalt-class destroyers by the Navy’s own admission are up to $3.3 billion a copy — outside analysts project even higher costs — and Navy Secretary Donald Winter has canceled the second LCS from each of the two firms building the ship. In contrast, program officials working with industry are well on their way to cutting the unit cost of the new subs to about $2 billion.

The Navy currently maintains 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines as a key element of the nation’s strategic deterrent capability and will have four Ohio-class boats converted to carry cruise missiles. The attack submarine force now numbers 54 boats.