Only by arbitrarily extending the life of many ships will the Navy reach the mandated 355-ship fleet by 2034. Here’s what the CBO said:
• Inventory. The Navy currently has 285 battle force ships, but it aims to build and maintain a 355-ship force.
• Purchasing Plan. The Navy plans to purchase 301 new ships between 2019 and 2048: 245 combat ships and 56 support ships. If the Navy adheres to the schedule for retiring ships outlined in the 2019 plan, it would not meet its goal of 355 ships at any time over the next 30 years.
• Fleet Size. After releasing its shipbuilding plan, the Navy announced that it would extend the service life of its destroyers from 35 or 40 years to 45 years and that it would extend the service life of up to 7 attack submarines from 33 to 43 years. With those service life extensions, the fleet would reach 355 ships in 2034 but would fall short of the Navy’s specific goals for some types of ships.
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| CBO figure on Navy ship inventory from 30 year shipbuilding plan. Only with the service life extensions, which arbitrarily increases the operations of ships far past their producers intended without major overhauls, does the Navy reach 355 ships. |
What’s stunning here is that to meet the 355 ship requirement, the Navy had to add 47 ships to its 30 year shipbuilding plan. The Navy said those 47 ships would cost $99 billion extra in constant 2018 dollars; the CBO estimates $208 billion.
That’s roughly $2 to $4 billion per ship! What in Sam hill are they buying? 47 extra SSBNs and CVNs? What’s crazy is that a lot of acquisition cost isn’t included in this, like the LCS mission modules or Aegis or many other GFE items.
Moreover, this does not include the increased O&M costs to maintain the older ships for longer than intended, not to mention the new ships.
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