The US Navy has released its required annual Report to Congress on its Long Range Shipbuilding Plan
Virginia Class Submarine on Sea Trials
US Navy Reports to Congress that Submarines are the Navy’s Most Survivable Strike Platforms and that the Submarine Industrial Base Must Be Expanded While Forecasting Growth in the Submarine Force Fleet.
The US Navy has released its required annual Report to Congress on its Long Range Shipbuilding Plan – but in an unusually abbreviated format. Normally these reports include detailed shipbuilding and decommissioning plans for naval vessels for each of the next 30 years, but this year only the current fiscal year was detailed.[1] The future fleet force structure was only characterized in ranges of quantities for each ship type, accompanied by an analytical context discussion for each element of the future fleet. Three key conclusions were readily evident in this abbreviated report:
Submarines are key to the future fleet structure of the US Navy. The future fleet fore structure size range, as well as the supporting text, indicates that the submarine force is only going to grow from its current size of 68 ships to between 78 and 84 ships (15% to 24% growth in force structure).
Submarines are the Navy’s most survivable strike platforms. This is clear in the positioning of the analytic context discussions for submarines leading the discussion and in direct language of the discussion. Specifically, the report stated, “As the Navy’s most survivable strike platforms, SSNs and SSBNs are key to both deterrence and winning conflict against a rival power.”
The submarine industrial base must expand. Directly quoting the Navy’s Subsurface analytic context discussion, “Maintaining the undersea advantage is a priority for the Navy. . . . To meet the demand for additional submarines, industrial base capacity must be expanded.”
While the Navy’s report to Congress is most specifically directed at shipbuilding, it is clear that the industrial base which supports maintaining these ships over their life cycle must also grow. As documented by multiple third-party agencies, the current Naval Shipyard industrial enterprise does not have adequate capacity and capability to maintain the current submarine force fleet. An example of this documentation is the recent determination by the Government Accountability Office that over the last decade the nation’s 4 Naval Shipyards have been unable to complete the required maintenance on the US Navy’s aircraft carriers and submarines, with an average of more than 0.6 aircraft carriers and more than 3.4 submarines always unexpectedly sidelined in delayed maintenance.[2]
Further, given that the submarine build yards are going to be operating at full capacity building up the submarine force fleet size, they are not the appropriate alternative for submarine maintenance – even if the build yard were fully adept at maintenance – which, of course, requires an entirely different skill set than construction.
A better approach to submarine maintenance – providing more maintenance capacity and capability – is required. This better approach must be achievable in the current environment, be affordable and be effective. The good news is that the Bartlett Maritime Plan™, described on our website, is both available and meets these challenging criteria.
The Bartlett Maritime Plan™ is a public-private-partnership (P3) which can both provide the required new ship maintenance capacity and capability while accessing an entirely new labor pool to staff this new capacity and capability. This new capacity and capability will include 2 new VPM-Virginia-capable drydocks in a totally enclosed drydock production facility and a new equipment depot to maintain and repair key ship components and equipment. Better, still, no new legislation is required to implement this plan which will also result in an annual savings of more than $100 million per year while also creating more than 41,000 jobs
