| Richard
Lazisky, a retired naval aviator, is the manager of aviation and aerospace programs in the
Center for Security Strategies and Operations of TECHMATICS' Defense Systems Group.
Several news articles alleging critical
shortfalls in the Navy's funding for aircraft carrier research have questioned the
service's commitment to the planned development of a next-generation aircraft carrier
(CVX). Some observers have said that the CVX program is dead in the water and rapidly
sinking. But Navy officials say the service has simply revised its approach for reaching
the CVX design, not its vision of building a new class of carriers for the 21st century.
Earlier, the Navy had announced an
ambitious plan to have a revolutionary CVX carrier reach the fleet by 2013. The CVX would
be tailored for the operational needs of the next century and would incorporate emerging
technologies in numerous areas to enhance its warfighting capabilities, while
simultaneously reduc-ing the carrier's overall life-cycle cost to taxpayers--over a
projected 50-year service life. Because of the continued decline in defense
spending--particularly in the research and development (R&D) accounts that support new
ship designs and technology insertions-- however, this plan has been changed. A less
ambitious program is projected in the Navy's "build" of the Program Objective
Memorandum for the fiscal year 2000 budget.
In a 2 June 1998 memorandum, Chief of
Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jay L. Johnson reaffirmed that the Navy remains fully
committed to developing the CVX, which will be fundamentally different in numerous ways
from today's nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carriers. Johnson's memorandum modifies the
Navy's CVX acquisition strategy by directing a more cautious, but still forward-looking,
approach that takes into account today's austere fiscal environment. The Navy's initial
goal to design CVX from a "clean sheet of paper," and to deliver the first ship
by 2013 would have required an R&D investment of $7 billion prior to 2006, when the
ship was scheduled to start construction. That funding requirement fell outside the Navy's
budget guidelines for FY 2000. The CNO's revised strategy calls for a still aggressive but
evolutionary approach--over the construction of three ships--that will use the existing
Nimitz-class hull to host near-term maturing technologies while proceeding incrementally
toward the desired CVX, which would enter the fleet around 2018, five years later than
originally planned.
The modified procurement strategy will
nonetheless embrace the two essential program goals: (1) sustain the 12-carrier force
structure required to support the U.S. National Security Strategy; (2) modernize the
Navy's sea-based aviation platforms by designing a new and more affordable CVX class of
carriers for the 21st century that will eventually replace today's Nimitz-class carriers.
The three-carrier approach continues to plan for the construction of a "transitional
carrier"--the still-unnamed CVN 77, which will serve as a bridge to the CVX carrier.
The planned delivery of CVN 77 in 2008 will help avoid a serious block-obsolescence
problem by replacing the conventionally powered aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk when she
retires after 47 years of service.
Defining the CVX
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier has
been, and for several decades to come will continue to be, the heart of America's
sea-based forward-presence and power-projection capabilities. The eight ships of the class
already in the fleet have been incrementally modernized during the past 23 years of
peacetime, crisis, and conflict operations. But the fact that its design was set in the
mid-1960s limits the Nimitz's growth capacity, and impairs the Navy's ability to
economic-ally insert some of the more revolutionary systems and concepts now on the
drawing boards Adopting a transitional approach to CVX, officials said, gives the Navy the
opportunity to develop an affordable new class of aircraft carriers with the war-fighting
capabilities required to fight and survive well into the 21st century. Because carriers
built to the CVX design may well be in the active inventory at the end of the 22nd
century, Navy spokesmen emphasize, the new ship must be built to a flexible and adaptable
design that will facilitate the adoption of evolving technologies and warfighting
enhancements.
Navy planners already have encouraged
engineers to think "out-of-the-box" in order to create the innovative ideas
needed to achieve goals envisioned for the CVX. An October 1997 "CVX
Flexibility" report, issued by the Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC),
concluded that the CVX must be mobile, flexible, durable, and capable of delivering a wide
variety of potent weapons. The NRAC report also endorses the three primary goals of the
Navy's CVX Mission Needs Statement: maintain the core capabilities of naval aviation;
improve the affordability of the nation's carrier force; and incorporate in the CVX a
flexible architecture for change in order to facilitate the seamless integration of new
systems now under development (as well as those not even in the conceptual stage).
The principal thrust of naval aviation
planning today, therefore, and for the foreseeable future, will be to exploit the
opportunities that emerging technologies offer and incorporate improvements into existing
and projected carriers, beginning with the start of construction for CVN 77 in 2001. A
1998 report by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis said that "connecting these
platforms in a concrete way will enhance surviv-ability and dramatically augment their
potential to dominate [future] theaters of operations."
One of the first CVX design goals is to
evaluate the maturing technologies and innovative systems that could improve the
operational capabilities of the Nimitz-class carriers already in the fleet. As the CVX
design evolves, planners will determine not only which technology insertions can be
afforded but also when they should be inserted during the development process. In his 2
June 1998 memorandum, CNO Johnson said that the near-term key to securing significant and
early cost savings is through the development of a new propulsion system for carriers.
Navy officials have reported that a draft copy of a new CNA (Center for Naval Analyses)
"CVX Analysis of Alternatives" study--expected to be released soon--indicates
that the CVX will be both large and nuclear-powered. Johnson has stated that the most
pressing needs for CVX are to: (1) incorporate an electrical distribution system with the
flexibility needed to support future technology insertions; and (2) design a propulsion
plant that can reduce carrier operating costs and power an electric-catapult system (which
would replace the less efficient steam-powered catapults used on the Nimitz-class
carriers). Other enhancements being evaluated include improvements to the layout of the
flight and hangar deck, advanced logistics-support and information-management systems, a
reduction in the ship's sensor signature, and improved damage-control systems.
Minimizing Life-Cycle Costs
The Nimitz-class carriers have proven to
be highly effective tools of diplomacy and war, but they also are manpower-intensive and,
thus, expensive to operate. Approximately $9 billion of the Nimitz carrier's estimated
$21-billion life-cycle cost is allocated to personnel requirements. To make the CVX more
affordable, Johnson challenged program officials in January 1998 to reduce the Nimitz
manning level (3,500 personnel, not including the air wing) to 2,500 or fewer on the CVX.
An earlier 1990­1992 CNA study on the "Future Navy Aircraft Carrier"
suggested that a manning reduction of 35 percent seems to be a reasonable goal. To meet
this challenge, the Navy plans to introduce new automated technologies and innovative
design processes that will reduce ship maintenance and manning requirements, thus
generating at least some of the cost savings needed--but without sacrificing essential
warfighting and other operational capabilities. In developing the CVX, designers will
complete a detailed analysis (already ongoing) of every shipboard function currently being
performed to identify those that can be improved, reduced, or eliminated. They also will
explore the possibility of using an electric power distribution system designed with a
modular architecture. The NRAC CVX Flexibility panel believes that type of design could be
used to provide a common power source to improve configuration flexibility and facilitate
maintenance. The new architecture would afford a flexible and adaptable structure that
could easily incorporate future modifications for the seamless integration of new systems
and capabilities now under development, thus meeting the third goal of the CVX Mission
Needs Statement--to incorporate a flexible architecture for change.
The Transition
The Navy plans to start merging the core
capabilities of the Nimitz-class carrier with CVX innovations beginning with construction
of CVN 77. A modified-repeat of the Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), now under construction, CVN 77
will incorporate numerous maturing technologies that will reduce manning levels but still
give the United States a significantly modernized Nimitz-class carrier that will be less
costly to operate, sustain the 12-carrier force structure, and facilitate the transition
to the new-design CVX.
The construction of CVX 78 in the
2006­2013 time frame will overlap to some extent with the start, in 2011, of CVX
79, the third ship in the CNO's modified carrier-acquisition strategy. Both carriers will
continue to consolidate technology enhancements to further reduce life-cycle ownership
costs and improve warfighting capabilities. The building of these carriers in sequence
will permit the introduction of advanced technologies at an affordable pace, culminating
in fulfillment of the "revolutionary" CVX concept when CVX 79 reaches the fleet
in 2018. The delivery of the three carriers will maintain the Navy's 12-carrrier force by
replacing the retiring carriers Kitty Hawk, Enterprise, and John F. Kennedy as they reach
the ends of their service lives between 2008 and 2018.
Logical, Balanced, and
Required
In his 1998 Vision ... Presence ... Power
program guide, CNO Johnson reaffirms that the end of the Cold War has not dimin-ished the
need for aircraft carriers. "Indeed, since 1990," he points out, "the U.S.
carrier force has been as heavily involved, if not more, in responding to and deterring
global crises. During the Cold War, the Navy responded to some 190 global crises, about
one crisis-response operation every 11 weeks. Since then, the Navy-Marine Corps Team has
seen a 50-percent increase in crises and combat responses, approximately one operation
every four weeks." A geographical plot of U.S. carrier deploy-ments since 1990 could
easily serve as a road map of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War world. Several
rapid carrier transits between the Arabian Gulf and the Adriatic, the repositioning of
carriers in the Western Pacific at the time of the Taiwan Straits crisis, and the ad hoc
use of carriers in the Caribbean to launch Army helicopters during Operation Restore
Democracy in Haiti--all highlight the diverse range of crises that the Navy has been
prepared to meet, despite the inherent limitations of a carrier force constrained in
numbers--but not in capability!
The U.S. Navy's CVX program envisions the
development of a next-generation carrier suited for tomorrow's battlespace. The CVX
carriers will incrementally replace today's Nimitz-class carriers, Navy officials say, and
simultaneously capitalize on the benefits of emerging technologies and processes capable
of reducing carrier life-cycle costs while maximizing warfighting capabilities.
Numerous studies and analyses have shaped
the CVX program and addressed the dynamics encompassing future international security
environments, threats, advanced technologies, and severe fiscal constraints. The CVX
program, the Navy says, will advance the battle-tested core competencies developed in the
Nimitz-class carriers, which have proven to be remarkably flexible, durable, and readily
adaptable to changes in both aircraft and ship technologies. Because tomorrow's aircraft
carriers will serve for 50 years, their design must be flexible enough to ensure that
operational primacy is sustained for decades to come, as CNO Johnson recognized, and
explicitly stated, in his Vision ... Presence ... Power program guide:
"The Navy will build operational
flexibility into new systems and platforms that will join the fleet. Missions, tasks, and
threats change, but many platforms--most particularly aircraft carriers, surface ships,
and submarines--last for several decades if not longer. The [conventionally powered] USS
Midway (CV 41), for example, was commissioned in 1945, when carrier service lives of 25
years were the norm. But Midway saw service in Operation Desert Storm, operating the
Navy's most advanced tactical aircraft some 45 years later. Projections of future ...
carrier service lives now reach 50 years. This means that the CVX 78, which is projected
to join the fleet in 2013, could be serving America until 2063, if not longer. Operational
flexibility and room for growth must therefore be designed and built in. ... Building
narrow design characteristics to save dollars in the near term will only increase the risk
of early obsolescence as threats and missions change, and would thus be a false and
dangerous economy."
The Navy has modified the CVX program
because of the austere fiscal environment, Navy leaders emphasize, and not because of any
lack of commitment to filling the need for cost-effective sea-based air power. Indeed, the
Navy is committed to full implementation of the CVX program, which seems destined to play
a vital role in maintaining U.S. maritime supremacy throughout the 21st century--as CNO
Johnson frequently has stated--"anytime, anywhere."
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