Seapower - August 2009

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said he probably will request funding for more F/A-18s, but suggested the issue will be studied during the ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review of military capabilities and requirements.

Boeing, meanwhile, has given the Navy an offer of 149 aircraft at $49.9 million apiece over the next five years. Doing so, company officials say, will amount to a 7 to 10 percent cost savings per aircraft.

The Navy needs congressional authorization to pursue a multiyear contract. And, with skeptics of multiyear deals including Senate Armed Services ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., it could be a steep climb — at least this year.

The Senate bill does not prohibit a multiyear buy, but stresses that the aircraft must adhere to strict rules governing multiyear procurement — which include independent cost estimates and a formal request from the Navy — before the panel will consider authorizing it.

In the meantime, it likely will be up to House and Senate Armed Services Committee members to hammer out their differences on the F/A-18s during conference talks on the bill later this year.

Meanwhile, House and Senate authorizers are likewise at odds over how to power the Navy’s future surface combatant fleet.

With the support of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and others, Levin included in his markup of the authorization bill a provision that would repeal a 2008 law requiring the Navy to make its CG(X) cruiser and other future surface combatants and amphibious assault ships nuclear powered.

The law, which was attached to the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, was pushed two years ago by House lawmakers, including Armed Services seapower and expeditionary forces subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss.

INTERCEPTS

“If 5 percent of the money being spent on the warships guarding those waters could be spent on building a security force that deals with the piracy, this could be much more effective because these guys have bases on the land and the best way to deal with them is to deny them a safe haven there.”

Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke
Somali Prime Minister
BBC News

“For there to be significant change within the next 24 months there needs to be significant change in the degree of awareness across the leadership within the Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy. Cyber-security may have more attention and it may be in a higher priority status but I’m not certain that it is getting due consideration in spite of the fact that we are at war.”

Richard Etter

The Navy’s Senior Information Assurance Officer On the road ahead for military cyber-security. Executivebiz

Taylor has said that conventionally powered surface combatants now in the Navy’s inventory must be refueled regularly, which slows down operations and, potentially, makes the ships targets at sea. He also has argued that the upfront investment in a nuclear power plant — estimated at more than $600 million per ship — would be more than offset by fuel cost savings during the life of the vessel.

But Collins and other opponents of the nuclear power provision have argued the costs are simply too high, particularly as the Navy struggles to reach its goal of a modern, 313-ship fleet. She said the Navy should be able to decide for itself how best to power its ships.

“I think that’s a real affordability issue that we should take another look at,” Collins told the Navy during a June 16 hearing.

For its part, the Navy has said it would comply with the law, but service officials have indicated they

ultimately would like the decision on how to power the ships be theirs.

The outcome of the debate will have long-term impacts on the shipbuilding sector, in general, and on yards in Mississippi and Maine, in particular.

General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, and Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., have exclusively built the Navy’s surface combatants for more than 30 years.

But neither yard is nuclear certified, calling into question how the Navy would build the CG(X) if it is nuclear powered. Getting certification for a shipyard for nuclear work is a time-consuming process that involves a hefty investment in facilities and manpower.

There appears to be little appetite within General Dynamics or Northrop Grumman to add another nuclear facility to their portfolio. Each company already has a nuclear-certified yard — Northrop’s