Admiral Harvey on Midrats Sunday

PHILIPPINE SEA (Nov. 16, 2007) American and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF) ships transit in formation at the end of ANNUALEX 19G, the maritime component of the U.S.-Japan exercise Keen Sword 08. The exercise is designed to increase interoperability between the United States and JMSDF and increase their ability to effectively and mutually respond to a regional crisis situation. Kitty Hawk operates from Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Stephen W. Rowe (Released)

This Sunday retired Admiral John Harvey will be on Midrats. This follows the recent appearance by Bob Work on Midrats. If you folks aren't listening to Midrats, you should probably figure out how to listen to the podcast once a week, because it is worth it. The following is my open letter to the hosts of Midrats regarding a question that has been on my mind lately, hoping perhaps Admiral Harvey has some insight on the topic.

Dear CDR Salamander and Eagle One,

Based on what I have read and/or discussed with Harvey over the last year, the following set of issues seems to be the topics he thinks about and writes about very frequently since his retirement. I'd encourage you to get him chatting up this topic for insights, and I'm sure you already had plans to do exactly that.

My question is simple, what does ADM Harvey make of Ronald O'Rourke telling the House Armed Services Committee that NOW is the time to start paying attention to the Force Structure debate? See his October 23, 2024 testimony to the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces regarding the 30-Year shipbuilding plan.

I look at the following examples as context, although it is unlikely this is an fully accurate representation of Ronald O'Rourke's thinking on the subject.

I have observed the Harvey/Wayne and the Rubel articles in Proceedings discussing small missile corvettes in "flotilla" style squadrons for adding diversity in distribution of precision missiles at sea. In essence, this looks to be an argument to use small flotilla warships in a battle fleet strike role.

I have observed two different responses from the Surface Warfare community to that specific discussion, We Need a Balanced Fleet for Naval Supremacy by CDR Phillip E. Pournelle and Naval Supremacy Cannot be "Piggybacked" on Small Ships by Lazarus.

I have observed the discussion of Influence Squadrons by Hendrix in Proceedings which also discusses small ships organized in squadrons centered around a mothership for sustained regional presence.

I have observed another article by Hendrix published by CNAS that describes the large deck aircraft carrier as an asset with a declining value at higher cost when looking into the future.

I have observed a recent report by RAND that concludes "the United States should pursue a strategy of making its sea power less vulnerable by relying more on submarines, drones, and smaller, elusive, widely distributed strike platforms" which also looks at the declining value of aircraft carriers in it's primary role in the Pacific. I am specifically talking about the report "Sea Power and American Interests in the Western Pacific" by David C. Gompert.

I have observed the NPS developed, ONA sponsored New Navy Fighting Machine that calls for a Fleet Constitution that has a greater variety of smaller vessels for multiple roles both high and low end, but essentially the NNFM looks to rebalance the fleet in favor of quantity over quality.

I have observed the LCS, intended to be a one-size fits all roles and missions modular design criticized for being too big for some roles, too small for others, lacking too few sailors to be a peacemaker, and lacking enough firepower to be a warfighter.

I have observed the US Marine Corps, consolidated into a declining number of three ship Amphibious Ready Groups, but still consuming the vast majority of shipbuilding funding of all ships not part of the main battle fleet (CVNs, CGs, DDGs, SSBNs, and SSNs). And the design of the Marine Corps 3-ship flotilla is still primarily focused around the single role of Joint Forcible Entry Operations, which presumably Bold Alligator 2012 informed about although no changes since are observable.

Are these discussions actually meaningful, as Ronald O'Rourke suggests to the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces? Are these discussions connected, or simply related? Is the community talking about the Battle Fleet roles of small ships in places like the Pacific, or is the community talking about the global naval roles generally of small ships not in the Battle Fleet? Is there a common thread with low intensity conflict squadrons like Influence Squadrons and the wartime squadrons like the ones Adm Harvey and Captain Hughes are discussing? The Battle Force is organized for what the Battle Fleet needs to be able to do for the nation, but can the Navy say the same is true for the rest of the ships in the fleet, including the Marine Corps?

The US Navy spends a great deal of time organizing in meticulous detail every aspect of the Battle Fleet - Carrier Strike Groups, Carrier Air Wings, Attack Submarines, and Ballistic Missile Submarines and every detail regarding design and construction and maintenance and basing and training and doctrine and tactics and organization and function and role and mission and strategy...

What should the Navy's intellectual focus be when it comes to thinking about the 'rest of the fleet' that isn't specifically part of the main Battle Fleet? Should the rest of the fleet be organized together, as is happening with the MCM Influence Squadron in the Persian Gulf with AFSB Ponce, MCMs, and PCs, or should the focus remain on highly specialized ships specifically instead of collectively, or is the modular approach of LCS the right approach for the entire small vessel portion of the Navy? Is it time to rethink the way Marines are fielded at sea, or is the 3-ship ARG how things should be? Can the LCS ever be the whole solution as it is intended to be today, or is LCS just one piece of a larger set of necessary capabilities that need to be present within lower tier of the surface force?

These are just a few of the things I have been thinking about, and in my opinion listening to Admiral Harvey discuss these topics on Midrats is well worth an hour of my time.

Respectfully,

Galrahn

A Fleet Design in Decline

Following the release of the Maritime Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, the Navy almost immediately tied budgets to strategy when John Morgan, as part of telling the story of 21st Century Seapower, claimed every budget is a strategy. Six years later under CNO Roughead and now CNO Greenert, it should be fairly obvious to everyone that strategic thinking in regards to Naval force structure is almost exclusively a military political strategy for dollar and industry share. Strategic guidance and thinking manifest as plans towards what a community can buy to build upon what a community already has.

I'm sure there is a sophisticated process behind how the Navy designs the future US Navy, but I'm also convinced that sophisticated process wouldn't survive a single debate with many competitors outside of OPNAV. If one stays with the same plan long enough expecting a different result, even a layman will eventually be able to point out the problems. In the case of the Navy's current fleet design under the plan released with this years budget, the math and real numbers suggest to this layman that the fleet as designed has peaked and is now in decline, indeed the Navy's own numbers highlight this very well.

I don't care about 30 year projections when it comes to shipbuilding. Short, Medium, and Long term trends and activities to me are measured in 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years respectively. Anything projected beyond 10 years is probably unreliable, and anything projected beyond 15 years except for ship retirements is surely fiction. For those playing at home, Military Times has all the PDFs you need to see the Navy's new plans. As I look at the new plan I am primarily focused on the next ten years and the last ten years, since the fleet numbered 297 ships in 2003 and is expected to number 297 ships in 2023 based on the Navy's own plan. I will also look at retirements beyond 10 years where applicable. As of May 20, 2024 the US Navy has 284 ships.

This link is the USN Plan for FY2014 (PDF), and this link has all the slides nice and neat (PDF). A lot of what I am about to discuss can be found there, with the rest of the details explain in future blog posts over the next few days.

The US Navy's Big Plan FY2014

The Navy makes clear the following planning assumptions.

• Battle force inventory of the "2012 Navy FSA" will remain the objective of this plan.*
• In the near term, the Annual budget for Navy shipbuilding will be sustained at the levels of the FY14 President's Budget (PB14) through the Future Year Defense Plan (FYDP). In the mid-term, annual budget will remain at appropriate (higher) levels,; and in the far term, be sustained at appropriate levels (slightly higher than current historical average).
• All battle force ships serve to the end of their planned or extended service lives. **
• The DoN will continue to acquire and build ships in the most affordable manner.

* FSA means Force Structure Assessment.
** Except for those that don't

I cannot explain the third point, except to say it is insulting. How can all battle force ships serve to the end of their planned or extended service lives when the Navy, down on page 21 of the same report, retires 7 CGs and 2 LSDs before their service lives are up? Glad you asked. Basically the Navy is moving these ships to a reserve status so the Navy can say those ships aren't technically retired early.

The unspoken planning assumption is that the President's budget completely ignores sequestration. We'll see how that turns out.

By 2023 the fleet will look different than today

The fleet increases the number of CVNs. The Navy had 12 CV/CVNs in 2003, has 10 CVNs today, and will have 12 CVNs in 2023. The Navy is sending a clear signal with this budget that the Navy will field 11 aircraft carriers (which is the legal requirement) until at least 2040 under current plans. I personally found it just a little ironic that the 11 aircraft carrier law is just about the only law that the Navy actually seems to care about in the entire shipbuilding plan.

The fleet increases the number of large surface combatants from 85 today to 87 in 2023, but by replacing CG53s with DDG51s, the overall number of VLS cells drops by over 500 by 2023. Even as the numbers of large surface combatants remain relatively constant throughout the 2020s, the number of total VLS cells will decline by 880 throughout the entire fleet by 2028. It is also worth noting all the DDG-51 Flight Is and Flight IIs that make up the bulk of the current ballistic missile defense fleet of the US Navy will apparently be retired from 2028-2034. To sustain this, the Navy expects to build either 2 or 3 DDGs at the cost of a DDG-51 Flight IIA ship from FY15 until forever.

The fleet decreases the number of attack submarines from 55 today to 48 in 2023. The total will actually fall to 42 by 2029 and never recovers to above 50 throughout the rest of the plan, and the plan never reaches the requirement of 52. The VLS payload module for Virginia class SSNs is not included in the budget, and will cost about $400 million per submarine. The SSGNs will retire without replacement in 2027 resulting in a total loss of VLS capacity of over 600 from the submarine force.

The fleet of 31 amphibious ships today will decline over the next few years but recover to 31 by 2023. There are only three amphibious ships built over the next decade until 2023, 2 LH(X) and the LSD(X), meaning two first in class ships. Noteworthy the 31 ship amphibious force could legitimately be 33 ships if the 2 LSDs weren't placed in reserve in FY15. Also noteworthy that with the upcoming retirement of USS Denver (LPD 9) and USS Peleliu (LHA 5) the Navy has two legitimate chances to convert amphibious ships into more AFSBs of different types. If you add Ponce (AFSB1) that gives the Navy 36 amphibious ships plus the MLP squadron, which in my book is a legitimate 2 MEB force. But too much wishful thinking, because in the end it's only 31 amphibious ships according to the plan on paper.

The combat logistics force of 31 ships in 2013 will reduce to 29 ships from now until forever, and under current plans the combat logistics force will be the smallest it has been in about a century. I have never heard a compelling reason articulated why the Navy would shift to the Pacific Ocean, and in doing so would reduce the size of the combat logistics force. I am sure there is a complicated reason for this well beyond the understanding of this layman observer.

All of the frigates and dedicated mine ships either already have been or will be retired by 2023, and the featured new additions to the fleet since 2003 and until 2023 will be 38 Littoral Combat Ships.

And for the record unless all public data on the F-35C, including that of GAO and CBO, is wildly incorrect, there is no math on the planet that suggests the Navy can field 10 carrier air wings in 2023 that are identical with 10 F-35Cs squadrons and 30 F-18E/F squadrons unless naval aviation gets a considerable increase in funding. I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, but the numbers for a little basic math and historical comparison is there to do some estimating. The Navy is going to fall billions short, unless flight hours are going to be down considerably on existing Super Hornets (which may be the plan?).

The current US Navy plan narrative goes something like this.

Naval Aviation
The Navy will pay to maintain the 11 big deck carrier requirement. UCLASS will be ISR only through at least 2025, and as such has joined the E-2D and EA-18G in N2/N6. N98, with their current "all in" approach to the F-35C and "your out" approach to UCLASS, has effectively sucked all the money out of every other community in the Navy. The CVN carrier air wing is on the verge of remarkable cost efficiency with five different models of aircraft using only five different engines; specifically the F-35C, the F-18E/F and EF-18G, the E-2D, UCLASS, and the MH-60R and MH-60S helicopters. At the same time, the entire platform and system model has become so expensive that today the Navy can only fully maintain 7 carrier air wings, with 2 carrier air wings suffering from training restrictions - 9 total today. How the Navy ever expects to afford 10 identical carrier air wings for 11 aircraft carriers in the future is a feat of financial magic yet to be revealed, and will almost certainly require a significant increases in funding. It is hard to see a scenario where the CVN of the future will ever be as efficient as it has been over the last decade, because that simply isn't ever going to happen with F-35C. As a result, the CVN force will almost certainly decline in capability over the next ten years relative to today.

Submarines
The attack submarine force will decline to far below requirement just as the ballistic missile submarines are being built. The SSGNs will be retired without replacement resulting in a loss of over 600 VLS cells from our submarine force over the next ten years. The payload module for the Virginia class submarine is apparently not in the budget plan, meaning to sustain current VLS capacity in the submarine force the Navy will require a significant increase in funding per attack submarine to fill the gap. As a result, the SSN force will almost certainly decline in capability over the next ten years relative to today.

Large Surface Combatants
The retirement of the CGs and by replacing those large surface combatants with DDGs will result in a net loss of almost 900 VLS cells throughout the surface fleet over the next 10 years. All new construction DDGs are priced at the remarkably efficient price of the Flight IIA, despite the need to add the new AMDR radar and despite Sean Stackley all but conceding in testimony that all new DDGs in the Flight III configuration will lack the power necessary to field the advanced weapons like lasers and rail guns currently in development for the surface force without major modifications, indeed often coming at a trade off for even more VLS cells or hanger space. As a result, the major surface combatant will almost certainly decline in capability over the next 10 years relative to today.

Amphibious Ships
The fleet of 31 amphibious ships today will decline over the next few years but recover to 31 by 2023. By every standard the amphibious force of 2023 will be more advanced and more capable than the amphibious force of today, but just because the Navy gets the ship portion of the amphibious force right doesn't mean the Marine Corps will get the ship-to-shore connector part right. I am a believer that the F-35B and MV-22 is a legitimate 21st century capability, but this need for speed requirement in AAV replacements has me wondering if the Marine Corps is too stuck on old ideas to come up with a 21st century way of war from the sea. I've never heard of such a thing as littoral warfare without Marines, and yet instead of building 21st century capabilities on land and sea, the Marine Corps seems stuck on the idea of a 2 MEB Okinawa style invasion. The littoral property that is going to require a 21st century Marine Corps isn't the beach, it's the oil platform and the 300,000 ton VLCC that if sunk, instantly creates the 2nd largest environmental disaster in recorded human history in some neutral powers fishing spot. In 2023 the US will have a 21st century amphibious force, but it is still unclear if it will be fielded with a Marine Corps stuck in a 20th century mindset.

Mine Warfare and Small  Vessels
Over the last ten years the Navy has retired 12 MCHs and over the next ten years the Navy will retire the rest of the original 14 MCMs. It could be suggested these 26 dedicated mine ships are being replaced by 24 Littoral Combat Ships with 24 MIW mission modules.When the latest SAR comes out (hopefully Thursday) we'll look at the lifecycle costs of this in detail, but until then I'd just point out that based on FY12 numbers it would appear the LCS + MIW module as a mine warfare replacement for these two vessels is going to cost the Navy almost $1 billion a year.

Now obviously the LCS + MIW module is not the same as coastal minehunters or minesweepers. LCS can sweep a larger minefield, can self-deploy to the minefield threat, is much better armed and defensible than mine ships, doesn't require sailors to be in a minefield, and in theory the ship can be used for something other than mine detection and clearance.

In 2023 the Navy will have 38 LCS, each with 2 crews and it is likely several of these ships will be forward deployed to Middle East and Pacific region areas. It is still very unclear how effective the LCS will be in any role, or what exactly the ship will bring to the fight. The LCS does not add combat power to the fleet, and the degree to which LCS is a legitimate networked sensor capability is still very unclear.

Theory Meets Reality
I see all the promise of increased capability in the FY14 Navy plan as evidence that the Navy plan is a theory of advancement that fails to cloak the reality of decline. In theory, mission modules are great. In reality, mission modules are still very far from a real capability today. In theory, UCLASS is the future of naval aviation strike and the savior of the CVN. In reality, UCLASS is in N2/N6 and isn't even seen by the N98 crowd as a naval aviation strike platform yet. In theory, Large Diameter UUVs will pick up the slack of the reduced SSN force and impending loss of SSGN strike capacity. In reality, LDUUV is a PPT slide. In theory, five engines for five platforms and EMALS and greater efficiency and stealthy F-35s all makes for a great CVN capability. In reality, if you buy 10 CVNs, the answer to how much the CVN capability costs is simple - the cost is ultimately less of everything else in every other Navy community from now until forever, and that is a neverending decline with no evidence anywhere the CVN is capable of picking up the slack of what is being lost. In theory the surface combatant force is getting better radars and better missiles and can shoot down ballistic missiles. In reality, fewer VLS means less offensive strike by the SWOs who are being relegated to defending HVUs, and in my read of naval warfare, playing defense at sea in the missile era is a long term loser.

In theory, everything in the Navy is great. In reality, the current fleet design has apparently peaked, and from here going forward everything under the current fleet design is more expensive. The Navy is trading advanced ISR capabilities for strike capabilities, and in fact every community is significantly increasing ISR while legitimately decreasing strike. It's the trend of the current fleet design, and only through PPT promises does that trend look any different at some distant future point.

Finishing the Kill Chain
The only areas the Navy Plan is actually advancing seapower is with total CVNs, overall amphibious force capability, and the Littoral Combat Ship. Unless the combined capability of the CVN in 2023 and the LCS in 2023 is superior to any combination of networked systems fielded today, this Navy Plan is a course towards irrelevance for the US Navy.

The proof is in the numbers. The proof is in the math. Ultimately, the proof is the plan provided by none other than the US Navy. This plan needs lots of money just to be executed as is, even more money to make the adjustments necessary to fix the obvious flaws, and in my opinion it needs lots of work and critical thought to fix some areas that are consuming limited resources with limited, marginal, or altogether unclear advantages.

The current fleet design is one of naval decline because it favors doing the same thing the same way and expecting better results after a decade period where efficiency in fielded capability peaked, and is now slowly declining with the addition of new evolved solutions. To make matters more complicated, all competitors to the US Navy are building capabilities that specifically attack the weak links of the current fleet design - weak links like the CVN which is numerically limited but consumes an overwhelming percentage of total fleet capabilities and investment, and weak links like a numerically challenged logistics force.

Less offensive capabilities on and under the sea has made the Navy even more reliant on the limited number of aircraft carriers, and can anyone in the Navy explain why the F-35C is the only platform in the 3 major communities that is adding a new strike capability to the fleet? The proposed Flight III sure doesn't advance the surface community towards the future, the payload module for Virginia is unfunded, the LCS surely isn't adding notable combat power, and the UCLASS is ISR only?

Sorry, but my read of Wayne Hughes is that we need to strike effectively first, and while I agree winning the information/communication battle in any environment is a critical enabler, it also means Navy must be capable of putting warheads on foreheads at the point of contact. That second part is not evident in the current fleet design based on what I see in the Navy's latest plan.

When You Add it All Up

When the Navy released their FY2013 budget earlier this year, the reason cited for not providing a shipbuilding plan with the budget was a Force Structure Analysis being conducted by the Department. The FSA is basically a classified review of the force structure, and it was expected at the time that the FSA and shipbuilding plan would be released together. By late March, Congress was getting restless and wanted to see a shipbuilding plan, but the FSA was not finished. March was hearing season on the Hill and a shipbuilding plan was needed. The shipbuilding plan was released in late March prior to the late March hearings with Congress.

As the Secretary noted in his written testimony, the"new FSA will consider the types of ships included in the final ship count based on changes in mission, requirements, deployment status, or capabilities. For example, classes of ships previously not part of the Battle Force such as AFSBs developed to support SOF/non-traditional missions, Patrol Combatant craft forward deployed to areas requiring that capability, and COMFORT Class Hospital Ships deployed to provide humanitarian assistance, an expanded core Navy mission, may be counted as primary mission platforms." Basically, the Navy is conducting a review of counting rules that will determine what ships are counted as Battle Force ships.

This is nothing new. Under Reagan, Secretary John Lehman counted every grey hull that floated in his attempt to build a 600 ship Navy, and if the Navy used Lehman's counting rules today, the ship types that counted towards the 568 Battle Force ships in 1987 would give the Navy well over 300 ships today if the same ship types were counted. Thirtyish years later, the Navy is conducting another review of the counting rules - reasonable.

After returning from Washington DC last week, I began breaking down the Navy's new 300-ship shipbuilding plan in detail. Leveraging the new shipbuilding plan, CRS reports on the Navy's new and old shipbuilding plan, and the Navy's FY13 budget I kept coming across what I would describe as anomalies when trying to add up the small surface combatant line. What I decided to do was go to the FY19 line, because in FY19 there will be only 1 FFG-51 left in the Battle Force, and using the Navy SCN budget book I was able to determine there were going to be 25 Littoral Combat Ships commissioned by that fiscal year.

Well, if there are 25 Littoral Combat Ships and only one Perry class left, and the new Navy 300 ship shipbuilding plan has 39 small surface combatants in FY19 - I started trying to figure out where the other 13 small surface combatants are. At first I thought maybe they were the MCMs, so I went to Ronald O'Rourke's report Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress dated March 30 which reflects the new Navy shipbuilding plan. As is historically custom, Ron lists Dedicated mine warfare ships as it's own ship type to be counted, but nowhere is there any mention of MCMs in the report - indeed the report lists the plan as having zero MCMs. Because mine ships have historically always been counted in their own category, and Ron didn't list them, I presumed the Navy wasn't counting them. Plus, there are 14 MCMs, not 13. The only small surface combatant class in the Navy that numbers 13 is the PCs.

It was about that point I realized the FSA and shipbuilding plan were supposed to be released together - but were not - and presumed that in the madness of getting the shipbuilding plan out the door the Navy added the PCs in the plan they released.

This is what Bob Work kindly forwarded to me on this subject before he got up on stage at SAS on Wednesday.

39 SSCS IN FY2019 INCLUDE 1 FF, 25 LCS, 13 MCM. WE USED TO COUNT MINE WARFARE VESSELS SEPARATELY. BUT SINCE LCS IS REPLACING FFS, PCS, AND MCMS, WE COUNT THEM IN THIS LINE.

33 SUPPORT SHIPS INCLUDE 2 LCC, 2 AS, 4 T-ARS, 4 T-ATF, 5 T-AGOS, 10 JHSV, 2 MLP, 2 AFSB, 2 TAKE IN MPSRON. WE COUNT ALL MLP, AFSB, AND TAKE IN MPSRON AS FLEET SUPPORT ASSETS, SINCE THAT IS HOW WE WILL EMPLOY THEM.

13 MCMs in FY19? Guess that means the Navy is retiring the MCMs immediately after Increment 3 of the LCS MIW module comes online. I also suppose my waterfall from FY13-FY20 regarding is off by one MCM decom somewhere...

Now, why would I suggest there is a shell game taking place with ship numbers? Well, here was the working theory, and I'll let you decide if I'm right or wrong on this - and we'll all know one way or the other as it plays out this year.

According to the 300 ship plan, in Fiscal Year 2013 the Navy expects to have 285 Battle Force Ships, but that number will fall from FY14-FY16 because the Perry's are going to retire faster than the Littoral Combat Ships come online, but by FY17 the Navy will be bounce back to 285 Battle Force ships.

So what happens if the FSA comes back and says add in the PCs and T-AHs? The Navy is also working hard to try to save some of their Cruisers being retired, and Congress is working hard to save the ships up for early retirement as well. What happens if just 2of the 4 Cruisers scheduled for FY13 decommissioning are saved?

Well, there are 282 Battle Force ships in the Navy today and when USS Mississippi is commissioned in June, the Navy will have 283 Battle Force ships. If in mid-June the Navy was to complete the FSA and announce changes like adding the 13 PCs, suddenly the Navy has 296 ships. If the Navy also added a pair of hospital ships, suddenly the Navy has 298 ships. If the Navy finds a way to save at least 2 cruisers from the FY13 budget axe, the Navy will suddenly have a 300 ship Navy by next year.

The PCs are rapidly approaching end of life though, so they may have only a decade or less of life left in them, meaning those 10 Battle Force PCs will only boost ship numbers for a limited time in the shipbuilding plan, if boosting ship numbers is the objective of the exercise.

But what if boosting ship numbers in the shipbuilding plan is not the objective of converting a PC with a limited life left in it to a Battle Force ship? Well, wouldn't that suggest this isn't about politics? If it isn't about politics, then why bother because the PCs are near end of life despite a bit of investment this year? When you start going down that road, one might wonder if there is some serious consideration regarding a replacement for the PC that isn't named LCS. Is a PC(X) program perhaps being legitimately considered by the Navy? Not on Admiral Roughead's watch... but he's gone. It couldn't be, could it... this has to be about the politics of ship numbers, right? There must be a reason, and I look forward to learning what it is.

The scenario of achieving a 300 ship Navy by next year, or some variation of it, is what I believe I am watching unfold, and it really is remarkably clever during an election year I might add. For the record, there are no PCs and T-AHs in the 300 ship shipbuilding plan, so I was wrong when I suggested otherwise.

But am I wrong for suspecting and/or suggesting there might be a shell game afoot? I'll let you decide.

Observing the Omissions, Additions, and Denials of Future Force Structure

So by now you might be starting to see what I'm talking about in regards to the questionable figures and statistics listed in the Navy's new 300 ship plan. If the hint on Monday wasn't enough, perhaps the visual aids from Tuesday were more effective in making the point.

You see, the issue here is specific to counting rules and how one creates a 300 ship fleet so as to not be the administration that let the Navy fade away quietly into the night. If you have been paying attention to the details of the new shipbuilding plan, you would note that the Secretary of the Navy himself is the one who brought the subject up regarding what ships count and what ships don't count in the plan. From the February 16, 2024 House Hearing on the Navy's FY13 Budget, written statement by Secretary Ray Mabus, page 11.

Future Force Structure Assessment and Re-designation of Primary Mission Platforms

Given the broad refocus of the DoD program objectives reflected in the new defense strategy, the Navy has undertaken analysis of the existing Force Structure Requirements and, in conjunction with ongoing internal DoD studies and planning efforts, is reworking an updated FSA against which future requirements will be measured. The new FSA will consider the types of ships included in the final ship count based on changes in mission, requirements, deployment status, or capabilities. For example, classes of ships previously not part of the Battle Force such as AFSBs developed to support SOF/non-traditional missions, Patrol Combatant craft forward deployed to areas requiring that capability, and COMFORT Class Hospital Ships deployed to provide humanitarian assistance, an expanded core Navy mission, may be counted as primary mission platforms. Any changes in ship counting rules will be reported and publicized. Any comments on total ship numbers in this statement are based on current counting rules.

I have a question. How exactly did the Navy's ~300 ship shipbuilding plan expect to ever get the fleet total to 300 ships as stated in this February testimony under "current counting rules" when the final plan released on March 28, 2024 before the Senate changed the counting rules - except they changed the counting rules without reporting or publicizing to the Senate those changes despite the SECNAV suggesting he would. The Navy quietly added the PCs and T-AHs into the final shipbuilding plan submitted to Congress to reach 300, then conveniently forgot to report and publicize that change. Oops.

The shipbuilding plan was released for the Senate hearing on March 28, 2012. Why didn't the Navy "report and publicize" the changes to counting rules at the hearing like the SECNAV said he would? Lets see, "Any comments on total ship numbers in this statement are based on current counting rules" was clearly an inaccurate statement, because without the changing the counting rules the plan would never be 300 ships. Saying "any changes in ship counting rules will be reported and publicized" also appears to have an accuracy problem, because the only person reporting and publicizing this counting rules change is me.

I don't know if these are SECNAV lies of omission or lies of commission, but the truth is hiding in the vast distance somewhere between CNO hope and SECNAV change.

I would like to hope Wednesday's 3:00pm House hearing on Navy Shipbuilding puts an end to the shell game the Navy is playing with shipbuilding - and has been playing for years. It is past time someone in the Navy just states outright the ugly truth about how the fleet numbers under tbe counting rules of the 313-ship plan are not going up under this new plan, and any cost growth in shipbuilding from this point going forward - like the future DDG-51 Flight III and it's AMDR gallium nitride (GaN) hail mary - means the fleet is likely to shrink even further. The new shipbuilding plan makes assumptions that carry a very high risk of failure, and the credibility of Navy leadership is on the line.

It's time to shake the "stay the course" addiction because that really is a rocky shoal ahead - the CNO can admit this but apparently does not want to admit what it really means for the future of the Navy. The new shipbuilding plan is as much a house of cards as the old plan, and the solution demands innovation in force structure sooner rather than later. The first step is admitting there is a legitimate force structure problem is to acknowledge that the evolution of existing warship platforms has become too expensive to meet operational requirements while sustaining pace on competitors, and the revolution in aircraft platforms has become an unaffordable money sink that draws resources from the innovations necessary to make NAVAIR relevant to the threats of the 21st century. No, even a perfect Joint Strike Fighter cannot make up for the loss of capabilities it's price tag prohibits from the modern carrier air wing, and JSF is destroying the value of big deck aircraft carriers to the total battle force with every extra dollar dumped into the program. If the Navy cannot admit these things, the Navy will never find suitable answers to the question the Navy has failed to answer since the cold war - what is the link between resources and strategy for the US Navy?

An entirely new force model is needed under current reduced resource investments, and both the SECNAV and OPNAV folks ignore this plainly obvious truth. Until the unaffordability reality can be admitted by the various communities inside the Navy, the shell game will continue with fewer platforms, fewer systems, and less capacity to meet the political and COCOM demand signal. The Navy doesn't have a plan, and the reason is simple:

The solution is big deck CVNs, constantly bigger surface combatants, and constantly big nuclear submarines - as many of all of them as possible - now Mr. President, what was your problem?

There is no such thing as a plan that links resources to strategy when the resources are predetermined regardless of resources available or political objectives stated in policy. The current Navy strategy is designed to inform towards a predetermined resource conclusion - the Navy will do everything, but only with these specific platforms.

The inflection point the CNO has discussed is here, now. The Navy raced past the Tipping Point months ago. It's time for folks to stop the political shell games with the future of the Navy and demonstrate some leadership. Will a leader step up to the enormous challenges of the moment?

Doubtful. Perpetuating a state of denial is easier.

Visual Aid

This is USS Firebolt (PC 10).

This is the USNS Mercy (T-AH 19)

What do these two ships have in common? These ships are in classes of ship that are now battle force ships according to the Navy's new approximately 300 ship plan. These ship types were never considered battle force ships under the 313-ship plan.

Why are they now battle force ships? Because there were 283 battle force ships when the Obama administration took office. There are 282 ships today. When you subtract 13 PCs and 2 hospital ships from the Navy's new plan, the new Obama administrations plan came out to only a 285 ship fleet, and anything short of 300 was politically unacceptable. In other words, they made shit up. Welcome to the shell game.

The Obama administration has moved BMD to the Navy, but added no ships with that policy change. Now the Obama administration is claiming a pivot to Asia with a maritime focus, and yet the Navy is losing ships and has to fudge finger add in 200 ton PCs and call them battle force ships to hit the political goal of 300 ships. I've said it before, I'll say it again...

The worst kept secret in the DoD: there is no plan.

P.S. If you want to know where the split is between SECNAV and OPNAV, you are looking at it. If the Navy is ready to start counting PCs as battle force ships, does that mean the Navy is ready to build an influence squadron? Yeah right.