Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
4/17/2015
As the budgetary and strategic foundation for the rest of the Navy’s future shipbuilding program, the Ohio-class Replacement (OR) Program would cause a $154 billion total shortfall across Fiscal Years 16-35 at the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2015 funding level, according to Navy documents released this week. If the Navy procures OR as planned, with the first boat steaming to patrol in 2031, other future force investment could be delayed, the service would deploy a less ready force and current force modernization could be frozen. Shipbuilding deficits would peak over Fiscal Years 2029-2035, at an average of $11.5 billion a year, rising from an average of $4.7 billion a year in FYs 2016 to 2022, and an average of $6.8 billion a year in FYs 2023 to 2028. The Navy would move toward a “garrison” and “hollow” force if it doesn’t receive additional funding, according to briefing slides. To plan the 30-year shipbuilding plan, the Navy projected President Barack Obama’s FY 2015 Navy funding request of $148 billion annually out to FY 2035, as a baseline to determine OR’s impacts on other resources in the future.
Absent additional funding, the Navy’s No. 1 priority could cause the service to skip a generation in warfighting advances across the fleet, and the Navy would fail to keep pace with adversary technology, the documents state. The Navy estimates OR will cost a total of $139 billion, and while Congress set up a Sea-Based Deterrence Fund in the FY 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, none of the $3.5 billion in authorized funding has been appropriated. When asked whether the Navy is looking at possible technology cuts to drive down the program’s cost estimate, Rear Adm. Joe Tofalo, Director of Undersea Warfare, told attendees of this week’s Sea-Air-Space Expo that the Pentagon has trimmed off several capabilities, cutting the capabilities to the bare minimum.
“There is no fat that can be trimmed. There is no system that can be reduced,” he said. “There’s no capability that can be cut at this point. We have rung every ounce of efficiency out of this, and at the same time, look you in the eye and every American in the eye and tell them that we have a ship doing what it needs to do through the 2080s to keep this country’s strategic deterrent doing what it has to do. So we’re at that point, and we’ve reduced from 24 to 16 tubes, from 10 masts to six. There are all kinds of things that we cut along the way, and there’s not that much left there. This is the right submarine that has the capabilities needed to meet its military requirements, and as an American taxpayer, you should feel pretty good about the fact that it’s got tremendous return on investment, and it has the ability to do what it has to do.”
OR Cornerstone of Navy Budget
Speaking at the expo, Rear Adm. Barry Bruner, Director of the Navy’s budget Programming Division, said OR was the cornerstone of FY 2016 budget planning discussions. “The Quadrennial Defense Review with its four pillars was released in 2014,” Bruner said. “We kind of culled for all that, and looked at all the missions that our Navy has to do. … As we built PB’16, we started with our last budget, the PB’15 budget, and the most important mission that the Navy has is Sea-Based Strategic Deterrent, so that’s the first lens we started with to figure out what our priorities would be. We went from there to forward presence.”
Navy Working to Drive Down Costs
Although OR might cause shortfalls, the Navy is working downward to a should-cost target of $4.9 billion, down from a 2010 estimate of $5.6 billion per follow-ship. The Navy estimates it has reduced follow-ship costs by $400 million between 2010 and today, according to an OR fact sheet. Officials say part of the cost savings are derived from the service’s ongoing work to leverage commonalities of OR and the Virginia-class submarine during their development timeframes. Even then, the savings might not be enough to keep current strategy intact.
Rear Adm. David Johnson, Program Executive Officer for Submarines, told NS&D Monitor on the sidelines of the expo that if the shipbuilding budget funds OR absent top-line relief, the Navy won’t be able to meet the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, which reflects President Barack Obama’s strategic direction to the Defense Department. “We’d have to rewrite our strategy for what we do in the world, because of that,” Johnson said. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert have appeared before several Congressional panels emphasizing the importance of additional funding OR. “Are we going to go to Congress and lobby for money? No,” Johnson told NS&D Monitor. “We’re making it clear the impacts of not having top-line relief.”
The Navy plans to release an RFP for OR’s design phase in December, the head of the service’s Submarines program said at the expo. “That will then fund the design work—both the [Navy shipbuilding budget] SCN and the research and development-funded elements through the lead ship,” said Rear Adm. David Johnson, Program Executive Officer for Submarines. Johnson said there are already 2,700 engineers and designers at Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding, as well as “hundreds” of subcontractor and Navy civilians, working on OR’s design. “The pace is increasing,” he said. “Prototyping is progressing. The design is maturing.” Bruner said Electric Boat has been working a prime research and development contract for OR since Fiscal Year 2012. The Navy expects to issue an RFP for lead ship construction in FY 2019, and to authorize manufacturing in FY 2021.
Plans for Trident 2 Follow-On
In addition to procuring the next-gen ballistic missile submarine, the Navy has started initial planning on the timing of when a Trident 2 follow-on will be needed, to serve ORs through the 2080s, Vice Adm. Terry Benedict, Director of Navy Strategic Systems Programs, wrote in submitted testimony to a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing this week. But a constrained budget environment is hampering fundamental SSP maintenance efforts and the industrial base supporting existing Tridents, according to the testimony. The Navy’s FY 2016 budget request includes a drop in the number of annual flight tests for the Trident 2, from four to three. Affordability drove the decision, and Benedict wrote he is committed to ramping back up to four tests per year. “A prolonged reduction beyond what is planned in FY 2016 would impact our ability to detect changes in reliability and accuracy of an aging system with the required degree of statistical confidence to meet STRATCOM requirements,” he said.
Tumbling demand for solid rocket motors has burdened the Navy with higher costs and generated uncertainty in industry. “While the Navy is maintaining a continuous production capability at a minimum sustaining rate of twelve rocket motor sets per year, the demand from both NASA and Air Force has precipitously declined,” Benedict wrote. “Not only did this decline result in higher costs for the Navy, as practically a sole customer, but it also put an entire specialized industry at risk for extinction—or at least on the ‘endangered species list.’ ”
