....or something like that.Another month, another issue of Proceedings that says nothing about the current Sea Base plan. For those counting, that is 26 straight months the Nations Premier Independent Forum on Defense publishes without a single article that addresses the $14+ billion dollar industry proposed Sea Base plan first leaked in June of 2005, including 2 issues devoted exclusively to issues of the Marine Corp btw. Bob told me the articles are coming, so maybe next month...
Don't get me wrong, I am a Proceedings subscriber and will be for life. In fact I need to get on the lifetime membership list sooner rather than later so I can quit learning about the contents of the new issues from lifetime subscribers like Gary and Rick (the theory is, lifetime subscribers get their issue shipped first).
This months issue, the annual Coast Guard issue, is still outstanding. Most notable for me was the article "The Navy and Its DDG-1000—Heading Wrong" by Captain Robert H. Smith, U.S. Navy (Retired). If you are reading this blog and you cannot read it online, you need to register because the article is free in the online content section. While your at it you should consider subscribing, for no other reason than to donate money to the great causes supported by the US Naval Institute.
Captain Smith's article takes on the Navy SWO communities expectation to build the DDG-1000 to be as stealthy as a submarine and with the strike capability of an aircraft.
The DDG-1000-class makes plain the lineaments of our Navy’s skewed vision: Remnants of sentiment clinging to a bypassed romantic ideal of the destroyer; and faith of those in its thrall that technology can overcome the impermeability of sea water and assure surface ships’ survival in the environment of the missile and the submarine. There is as well a late-blooming infatuation with that over-hyped locale known as “the littoral,” and the Navy’s straining for larger roles that the immediate conflict denies. And, as always, addiction to the kinds of advocacy that sweeps aside damning truths, with our Navy foremost among the deceived.
A recent phenomenon is an exhortation to “think outside the box.” Meaning what, I haven’t the foggiest. But I suspect that the time is nigh to pop back inside it.
Inside the box, the sea air clears the head, and answers stand out sharp as hulls on a knife edge horizon. Vision refreshed, the Navy’s altered goals should be the creation of classes of affordable warships scaled back to capabilities realistically attainable. Conveying the nature of such ships, it is easier to begin with what it will not be, what it cannot do.
Read it all.
I am a fairly well researched person on Navy public statements, and I am unaware of any instance where the DDG-1000 includes statements regarding what it will not be, what it cannot do. I have, on the other hand, read too many transcripts where the Navy goes on and on about the DDG-1000 within the context of the networked 313-ship fleet being ideal for addressing the GWOT, meeting challenges from future competitors, providing NSFS for Marines, and in general meeting all threats over the next few decades.
The glaring issue here is the Navy's dedication to meet all threats has been folded into a single platform, actually seven platforms, at the traditional cost of around 17 of the previous generations ship designed to meet that role. The CBO said last month the first two DDG-1000s are to cost 4.8 billion each, with the other 5 costing an average of 3.5 billion each. That is 27.1 billion dollars for 7 ships in FY08 dollars. By comparison a new DDG-51 would cost 1.6 billion in FY08 dollars, meaning for the cost of the DDG-1000 class, the Navy could buy 17 more DDG-51 Flight IIAs.
The DDG-51 Flight IIAs are admittedly expensive to operate, but that doesn't mean the money couldn't be for already existing proposals that would meet the same requirements at a higher quantity than the DDG-1000. The DDG-1000 was originally billed as the much needed NSFS platform. Well, why not think out of the box on NSFS? I might be guessing here, but I bet a 40 ton NSFS ship off shore is harder to see than a 14,500 ton ship, in both night and day, and I'd bet one can get more guns, more rounds down range, and more survivability in NSFS with a system like that at a lower cost too.
Additionally, there is the Lockheed Martin LCS AEGIS design, the General Dynamics LCS AEGIS design, and the Gibbs and Cox AAW AEGIS design. I'd bet the reduced costs would get the Navy more than 17 ships even if you bought all 3 classes. These designs can be molded to meet every single realistic requirement for a US Navy surface combatant, whether AAW, ASW, ASuW, or MIW and including missions other than war.Can someone honestly state emphatically the 7 DDG-1000s will enhance the future Navy's capability further than 17 DDG-51 Flight IIA equivalents? The Navy is not a philosophical organization, there is an expectation that somewhere hard science supports the wild claims behind the DDG-1000s "transformational" capability. Where is the modern science or even the modern history that a large surface combatant is able to achieve the characteristics of a submarines stealth on the battlefield? Why then do the Navy brass continue to sell the DDG-1000 survivability in similar terms?
SECNAV said back in April:
One problem for the Navy is that over the years it has lost its "domain knowledge and understanding" and has attempted, in many cases, to pull more of that capability from industry than it has in the past, Winter said.
"[We're] asking industry to come up with solutions, as opposed to going in and saying 'we want a ship of this type and this design with these features and capabilities,'" he explained. "We've had a tendency to depend upon industry to optimize those configurations."
The Navy has to define what it wants for the future, Winter asserted.
"It's the Navy's fleet, it's not a contractor's fleet, and ships, for the most part, don't operate by themselves. Ships operate with other ships whether it is a CSG (Carrier Strike Group) or ESG (Expeditionary Strike Group) or any operations, and it's just not other ships, it's aircraft and other systems that support them," Winter said. "I think we have to go back and reassert the Navy's role in terms of defining what it is we are, we also have to develop ... re-develop, the ability to manage the contractors."
There has been a theme in the Pentagon, for many years, that says the services just have to outsource...let the contractors do it...competitive pressures will take care of everything, Winter said.
Shipbuilding is directly tied to the Navy plan. Industry is running the show on Sea Basing, and industry is tapping into the Navy's natural desire for requirement creep with the DD-21/DD(X)/DDG-1000. As long as the Navy sticks with the 313-ship plan weighed heavily towards fewer, unreasonable expectations regarding "transformational" capabilities on fewer platforms, the shipbuilding industry can continue to expect fewer orders with unreasonable expectations attached to the industries sustainment.
The irony, for the Sea Base, the industry and the Navy gravitated to a more affordable design that utilized as much existing technology as possible. It is possible that if the industry and Navy put the same theory into practice with the surface fleet, 313-ships would be the low end of the numbers the US Navy would have to operate, as opposed to what it is now, an unreachable figure.
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