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On deck for’08

The coming year will bring new uniforms, career rules and benefits to sailors and new ships and missions to the fleet.

1. New uniforms

For every officer and enlisted sailor, 2008 will begin the biggest uniform shift in the history of the Navy.

Everyone will get the new Navy Working Uniform, a battle-dress-style uniform with a blue, black and gray digital camouflage pattern and an eight-point cover to replace dungarees and wash-khaki uniforms.

Although coveralls were supposed to be replaced by the NWU, officials have spared the much-loved, comfortable uniform.

Also, sailors will get a physical training uniform for the first time, filling a long-noted gap in the seabag.

In addition, all sailors E-6 and below will look a little more like their sea-service counterparts in the Marine Corps: Junior sailors will begin to shift from their summer white and winter blue service uniforms to a year-round model — a khaki shirt, black pants, garrison cap and pin-on collar devices.

The PT uniform should be available in exchange uniform stores this spring, officials said, while the working and service uniform items won’t hit the shelves until summer.

For active-duty enlisted sailors, 2008 will provide the first part of a two-year plus-up of uniform allowances to help defray the cost of reworking their seabags. All are getting an average of $300 this year to cover the cost of half of their new uniforms. The rest is expected to come in 2009.

Officers must pay for the uniforms out of pocket, while reservists will be issued the uniforms at their operational support centers once they become available.

2. Education counts

In 2007, officials rescinded the requirement that chiefs have an associate degree to make E-8 in the 2010 selection board. Now, instead of requiring degrees, the Navy will reward studious sailors with advancement points.

Starting with the fall advancement cycle — August tests for reservists and September exams for active-duty members — sailors will get two advancement points for an accredited associate degree and four points for a bachelor’s degree.

3. IA duty, here to stay

If you haven’t yet had the chance to carry an M16 around a dusty Middle Eastern base, you may get the opportunity to pound the ground as an individual augmentee with the Army or Marine Corps in 2008.

There are about 12,000 sailors on the ground around the world, 8,000 of whom are in the Middle East, according to Lt. Candice Tresch, a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon.

The Navy has strived to improve notice time and training, and to better match assignments for IAs, but Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead has admitted improvements still can be made to better the IA process.

“As I talked to sailors who are on IA, we were seeing about 85 percent who were working in an area where they were told they’d work,” the CNO told Navy Times in November. “I’d like to see that a bit higher, but the fact of the matter is the demands shift, the requirements shift, but these are things we are able to tell, and I think it’s indicative of the attention we’ve put on IAs.”

Officials are trying to change the system so sailors aren’t yanked from their sea or shore tours to take these jobs, instead hoping to move toward making IA duty part of normal rotations for most sailors — and reward them with perks such as advancement points and follow-on duty preferences.

Additionally, IA sailors will have an option of taking permanent change-of-station orders to Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Va., or San Diego so their families can have access Navy support services while their sailors are away.

4. Expeditionary careers

To help retain the specialized skills sailors gain through service in the new units of Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, 2008 should bring progress toward closed-loop detailing. If it happens, sailors such as those assigned to riverine squadrons will be able to stay in expeditionary units and continue to develop those skills, instead of going back to the gray-hull fleet at tour’s end.

5. Steep sailor cut

In the last large drawdown move, the Navy will cut 6,497 people from its ranks by Sept. 30. That will take the Navy from 334,897 sailors as of Dec. 24 down to 328,400 by Oct. 1, 2008. The eventual goal is to be at 322,000 sailors by 2013, with the remaining 6,000 cuts to be spread over nearly four years.

6. Last Nimitz CVN

The Navy expects by the end of 2008 to commission its last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier — the George H.W. Bush, now under construction at the Northrop Grumman Newport News, Va., shipyard. The next class of flattops will be the Gerald R. Ford class, with the first Ford expected to be delivered in 2015.

7. First LCSs arrive

The first two long-awaited, often-delayed, grossly over-cost littoral combat ship sea frames are set to reach the fleet in 2008. The original price tag of $220 million apiece has risen to between $350 million and $375 million. The Lockheed Martin steel-hulled Freedom (LCS 1) and General Dynamics-built aluminum-hulled trimaran Independence (LCS 2) should enter the fleet for crews to begin sea trials. The service plans to build 55 LCS vessels, making up about one-sixth of the planned future 313-ship fleet.

8. Nuclear cruiser?

Sometime in 2008, the Navy will complete an analysis of possible designs for its future cruiser, the CG(X). The closely-held study is being conducted by the Centers for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research center in Arlington, Va. Lt. Cmdr. John Schofield, a spokesman for the Navy’s acquisition directorate, told Navy Times the study is looking at both nuclear and fossil fuel options for the new ship.

Congress wants the service to use nuclear power propulsion to save on energy costs in the long run; however, the Navy has been reluctant to commit to such a rigid mandate. Roughead has told lawmakers he believes the initial costs for nuclear fuel are too expensive and could compromise the cost of building the rest of the ship.

9. Carrier swap in Japan

The summer will mark a milestone in U.S. relations with Japan when the aircraft carrier George Washington, powered by its dual nuclear reactors, arrives in Yokosuka to replace the conventionally powered Kitty Hawk.

The Nimitz-class George Washington will leave its Norfolk, Va., home port for the Pacific and join Carrier Air Wing 5 to lead U.S. naval power projection as the Forward Deployed Naval Forces.

The Kitty Hawk’s eastward trek is a sunset cruise of sorts, with the 47-year-old ship heading into retirement. A Wilmington, N.C., group wants to turn the carrier into a floating museum.

10. More maritime partnerships

Get ready to grab a paintbrush, paint a school, kick a soccer ball and drink a cup of the local beverage of choice — the CNO wants his sailors building relationships around the globe.

Since the release of the new maritime strategy in October, Roughead has stressed the Navy’s goal of additional maritime partnerships. Building on calls for a “1,000-ship navy” begun by his predecessor, now-Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, Roughead told sailors in his first Internet podcast that they should gather knowledge about other cultures and develop relationships with sailors around the world.

In 2008, the amphibious ship Fort McHenry will continue its seven-month deployment as part of Naval Forces Europe’s Africa Partnership Station initiative, aimed at cementing relationships with nations in West Africa and promoting better maritime safety and security in the crime-plagued Gulf of Guinea.

11. Bachelor housing boost

A trio of towers rising above the Navy’s San Diego waterfront will open their doors to sailors before year’s end. But the $320 million Pacific Beacon is no barracks— it just might be the hippest quarters around the Navy. The glass-and-concrete buildings, which frame palm-dotted plazas, feature 941 dual-master-suite units with balconies, and some boast water views. On the East Coast, construction begins on new housing for 1,190 bachelor sailors at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., and in Newport News, with completion set for 2010.

12. More child care

As part of a plan to expand child care for Navy families, some 502 spaces will be added to the Navy’s child care facilities in the Hampton Roads, Va., area in the next two years. The move is part of a plan to add more than 1,300 spaces across the Navy, at a cost of $62.5 million. By the end of 2008, there will be 50 more child care spaces in Annapolis, Md.; 120 more in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; 360 more in San Diego; and 340 spread across Navy installations in Pensacola, Fla., Gulfport, Miss., New Orleans and Dallas.