Three Options for Change for the Navy's Surface Force

By ERIC J. LABS

The Bush administration came into office with the stated intention of transforming the military into a more effective and lethal force. Perhaps the most visible such effort for the Navy is the drive to modernize the surface combatant force. Over the next 10 to 15 years, the Navy plans to retire one class of destroyers, modernize its cruisers and frigates, and introduce three new classes of surface combatants. That plan--which is at the heart of the Navy's effort to expand the total fleet from a little more than 300 ships to 375--would produce a force of 160 surface combatants 25 years from now, compared with today's 115 surface combatants. Indeed, the Navy is the only service in which the linchpin of its transformation plan is a large increase in force structure.

The resources needed for that expansion, however, are much greater than what the Navy now spends on surface combatants. Without large budget increases, transforming the surface combatant force could crowd out funding for other ship programs.

To address that issue, one could limit the amount of money spent on buying and operating surface combatants to today's spending--about $6.6 billion in 2003 dollars--and devise several different alternatives to modernize the force.

After such an analysis, the conclusion one reaches is that the Navy could cap average spending at today's level and still have a larger and more capable force of surface combatants in 25 years. Of course, the additional money that the Navy would spend under its own plan would provide an even bigger and more effective force. But in the absence of any analysis to show why 160 surface combatants are necessary (as opposed to some other number), the options presented here would help address the Navy's coming funding crunch.

Modernization: A Matter of Resources

In spring 2003, the Navy's force of surface combatants comprised 17 Spruance-class destroyers, 27 Ticonderoga-class cruisers, 33 Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, and 38 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

With the demise of the Soviet fleet, Navy leaders have shifted their attention to influencing events on land and operating in crowded coastal regions. The Navy expects the next generation of ships to reduce the risks that U.S. naval forces might face in that operating environment (such as mines, quiet diesel-electric submarines, and small, fast attack boats armed with antiship missiles) and to increase the ability of those forces to attack targets on land.

The Navy's transformation plan would retire all Spruance-class destroyers and the five oldest Ticonderoga-class cruisers by late 2006--well before the end of their expected service lives. It would also upgrade the combat systems and reliability of the remaining Ticonderogas and Perry-class frigates. The Navy's main focus, however, is on buying 16 new, large multimission DD(X) destroyers, starting in 2005; 56 small, "focused mission" littoral combat ships (LCSs), also starting in 2005; and an undetermined number of CG(X)s, the future cruiser replacement, beginning around 2014. The envisioned inventory of 160 surface combatants would eventually consist of 88 cruisers and destroyers capable of providing long-range air defense, as well as the DD(X)s and LCSs.

This 160-ship plan would require greater resources than the surface combatant force has received in recent years or would receive under the president's budget request for fiscal year 2004. Under that plan, the Navy would spend $3.2 billion in 2004--or about 28 percent of its shipbuilding budget--to buy surface combatants. To implement the 160-ship plan, the Navy would need to spend an average of $5.9 billion a year (in 2003 dollars) on procurement between 2003 and 2025, and that amount does not include annual operating costs for surface combatants.

At the same time, other components of the Navy will also need greater resources. Meeting the Navy's expansion goal of 375 ships would require an average budget for ship construction of almost $20 billion in 2003 dollars a year between 2011 and 2020--or about $4 billion more than the average required for the period from 2003 to 2010 and more than twice what the Navy spent between 1990 and 2002. (The shortfall in the shipbuilding budget since 1990 relative to the goal of building a 375-ship Navy is about $67 billion.)

In short, the Navy is proposing a major expansion of the surface combatant force that will require considerable resources at the same time that other ship programs will need more funding if current force levels are to be maintained.

Future Force, Today's Funding

Transforming the surface combatant force need not be as expensive a proposition as the Navy's 160-ship plan would be, however.

Let us consider three different options to structure the force, each of which would require no more than an average of about $6.6 billion a year (in 2003 dollars) for procurement and annual operating costs between 2003 and 2025. The three approaches offer various tradeoffs between keeping the current generation of ships and transforming the force.

* Option I would delay the transition to next-generation ships by making the most of the existing fleet. The surface combatants of the current Cold War generation are still formidable fighting ships.

This option would keep many of them through the end of their notional service lives to ease the shortage of ships that Navy admirals foresee. The Spruance-class destroyers would be retained and upgraded, as would the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Perry-class frigates.

The CG(X) would be delayed for five years, and the DD(X) and littoral combat ship would be canceled. In their place, the Navy would build a next-generation frigate more capable than the LCS but smaller and less costly than the DD(X). That frigate would perform all three of the LCS's missions (mine countermeasures, antiboat operations, and littoral antisubmarine warfare), and it would have strong defensive capabilities to make it better able to survive in a littoral environment.

Overall, this force would be larger than the force in the Navy's 160-ship plan over the next 10 years but smaller thereafter. It would provide a lot of ships in the short term to be in a lot of places at once. In a sense, it is the force for the war on terrorism.

* Option II would do the exactly the opposite: accelerate the transition to next-generation ships by retiring much more of the existing force early than the Navy plans to do.

The Navy would more aggressively pursue the new capabilities and ships promised by next-generation technology. To free up funds for that effort, it would dramatically cut the surface combatant force in the short term. It would upgrade the combat systems and reliability of 13 Ticonderoga-class cruisers; of the other 14, the five oldest would be retired by 2006 and the rest by 2014, well before the end of their notional 35-year service life.

This approach would retire all Spruance-class destroyers by 2006 and all Perry-class frigates by 2010. It would buy 12 DD(X)s, accelerate the procurement of the CG(X) to 2012, and purchase only 30 littoral combat ships, starting in 2005. In short, this option would scale back the programs in the Navy's plan to make them fit with less spending. The logic behind this option is that it puts a premium on getting new technology to the fleet so that the Navy can deal with potential area denial threats as they develop. It addresses future threats and explicitly assumes the risk that the current war on terrorism will not require large numbers of surface combatants in the short term.

* Option III would buy fewer next-generation ships by assigning multiple crews to new ship classes. The Navy would transform the surface combatant force using a different operating concept, in which three crews operate two ships. By doing so, the Navy could provide the same overseas presence as under its 160-ship plan but with a smaller fleet and for less money.

Although multiple-crewed ships can provide about twice the peacetime presence of single-crewed ships, they offer no extra benefit during a war. Wartime capability is based on the actual number of surface combatants in the force.

This option would also retire the Spruance-class destroyers early and upgrade all but the five oldest Ticonderoga-class cruisers as well as the Perry-class frigates. It would buy only eight DD(X)s and 28 littoral combat ships. The CG(X) would be delayed until 2018, and only 15 would be purchased.

Those new classes of ships would use multiple crews and thus spend more time at sea, so they would cost more to operate than single-crewed ships. Under this option, the surface combatant force would increase to 124 ships by 2025, but the multiple-crewing concept would make that force equivalent to 165 single-crewed ships in peacetime.

Comparing the Capabilities of Three Approaches

To evaluate the three options and how they compare with the Navy's 160-ship plan, I used various measures of peacetime and wartime capability for the surface combatant force.

The principal measures are the total numbers of surface combatants; vertical launch system (VLS) cells carried by them; ships capable of long-range fleet air defense; helicopter hangars; penetrating littoral antisubmarine warfare suites; guns capable of firing extended-range guided munitions; 155mm Advanced Gun Systems (to provide long-range fire support to the Marine Corps); and next-generation ships. Equally important were the total crew size of the surface combatant force and its average age.

Overall, the Navy's 160-ship plan would provide the most capable and balanced force of surface combatants--but at a cost that could prove prohibitive. However, the budget-constrained options would produce a much more capable fleet of surface combatants than today's force.

Although the Option I force would be the oldest, it would also be the largest and most capable in 2010, according to the majority of measures that I used. By 2025, however, it would still be the oldest fleet and would no longer be as capable as the Navy's planned 160-ship force.

Option II's strong suit is its number of next-generation ships, which is a wartime measure.

Conversely, Option III fares the best among these options with respect to peacetime presence. "The study examines the measures with respect to peacetime forward presence and wartime surge." In short, if the Navy gets all the shipbuilding money it wants, there really is no need to consider the options I have presented here. But if you believe that the Navy's shipbuilding budget will not double and stay doubled for the next 20 years, then it is necessary to carefully analyze exactly what the Navy wants and needs.

I have presented some options here, although they are hardly the only ones. I hope the Navy is thinking about others as well.*

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not those of the Congressional Budget Office.

Dr. Eric Labs is principal analyst for naval forces and weapons at the Congressional Budget Office. This article was based on his recent study, Transforming the Navy's Surface Combatant Force.