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April 2006

Surface Combatants Dominate Future Fleet

By Grace Jean

The Navy’s proposed 313-ship fleet is top heavy in combat vessels and low in cargo and support ships, say analysts.

“In my estimation, the Navy is putting way too much emphasis on improving strike and not enough on the logistics—on being able to sustain the fleet forward in an anti-access environment,” says Robert Work, senior naval analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “We have more strike than we need, and we’re pursuing ships that just do strike better, like DD(X) and CGX.”

Throughout the Cold War, at no time did the United States ever have fewer than three Marine expeditionary brigades of amphibious lift as a requirement, says Work. Today, in a global situation that demands capabilities to move troops in a ground war against Al Qaeda in the Middle East and other potential conflicts, the military will need to bring in forces from the sea, he added.

The Navy plans to build a total of 88 surface combatants composed of 26 next-generation destroyers and cruisers and 62 Arleigh-Burke ships.

That number is just two ships short of what the service had wanted when it was looking at building a much larger fleet, says Work.

“We have the 600-ship Navy’s worth of combatants plus another 55 littoral combat ships,” says Work. “We’re spending a lot on surface combatants. That’s why the costs are going up so much in the shipbuilding budget,” he added.

Before the DD(X) became the Navy’s next generation surface combatant, it was intended to supersede the DD-21, a replacement for frigates.

“The DD(X) was supposed to be a low-cost ship that had an average of $750 million in fiscal ‘06 dollars. Now it’s a $2.5 billion Battlestar Galactica,” says Work.

Two shipyards are working simultaneously on DD(X). Around 2009, Work says two things will happen: one, the service will know whether it can build DD(X) for the price it has touted, and two, the service will discover whether the next-generation destroyer CGX weapons system will fit on the hull of DD(X).

Work predicts that if the price on DD(X) is spiraling in 2009 and the CGX system is not fitting, then “you will get a Seawolf class of DD(X)” and the Navy will design a modular hull that will accommodate either system and thereby lower the cost.

The service lifetime expectancies of carriers, at 50 years, and submarines, at 33 years, are good bets, says Work. But the assumption that every major surface combatant will last 35 years is not a great bet, he says. Because a large portion of the fleet—one of every three or four ships—will be a surface combatant, the cost of maintaining those ships and replacing them at a steady state could run the Navy aground into dire financial straits.

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