The Drift

Sponsored by:

Navigation Brief

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Good evening from my couch.

Tonight, we are going to get into one of my favorite topics: Sealift.

It’s not the sexiest topic. It doesn’t have missiles or big radars or torpedoes, but it is at the core of the United States’ ability to project power in great power conflict. And right now, we are failing. Badly.

This was the point of a series of articles I wrote last year, that I am immensely proud of.

Shameless plug, here:

The US Army is preparing to fight in Europe, but can it even get there?

‘You’re on your own’: US sealift can’t count on Navy escorts in the next big war

The US Navy will have to pony up and race the clock to avoid a sealift capacity collapse

US Army warns of crippling sealift shortfalls during wartime

Well, there was an interesting hearing in the House Armed Services Committee and the outlook is somehow even worse now. And that’s the subject of tonight’s Drift.

Thanks for joining me again!

 

DBL

 

Sealift Woes

The basic premise of my articles last year, if you didn’t drop everything you were doing to spend 30 minutes reading through them just now, was that the bulk of the ships that the Army and Marine Corps would need to ship their equipment to Europe or Asia are in appalling condition and will need to be retired soon.

The direst problems are in the Ready Reserve Force, which are a collection of 46 mostly roll-on/roll-off ships kept in surge-ready status that are hitting the end of their service lives. The Navy, which is on the hook for the funding, came up with a three-pronged plan to recapitalize the fleet: buying used ships off the open market; developing new classes of auxiliary ships to replace the current fleet of maritime prepositioning ships and move the current prepositioning ships into the reserve force; and finally to extend the service lives of the current RRF ships.

The consequences are pretty dire if they don’t get this done, stakes that Seapower and Projection Forces ranking member Rep. Rob Wittman laid out pretty clearly in the hearing:

The Quote: With no recapitalization in place and only the distant hope that the Navy will find this a priority, I continue to be perplexed as to how the Army and the Marine Corps hopes to get to the future battlefield on these aged ships.”

So, let’s get to the news out of this hearing:

  • A number of ships (waiting to hear back on how many) in the RRF cannot legally get underway because they lack a U.S. Coast Guard Certificate of Inspection. An additional 13 ships require additional unplanned maintenance to get underway.
  • Transportation Command head Gen. Stephen Lyons said they need to move out faster on buying used ships, a recommendation that was echoed by the Seapower Subcommittee chairman, Rep. Joe Courtney, in his opening statement.
  • Under current funding levels, the U.S. sealift capacity will begin collapsing in on itself in 2024.
  • Both Lyons and Maritime Administrator Retired Rear Adm. Mark Buzby said the Navy is struggling to find a way to pay for a recapitalized sealift fleet.
  • Lyons gave the Navy credit for digging into the problem, but acknowledged that the Navy’s out-year recapitalization costs are crowding out what money they must spend on recapping the sealift fleet.

The Navy has programmed money into the service life extension program for the RRF, but according to Lyons and Buzby they have not made as much progress as they would like. Buzby said once they brought the ships into dry dock, the growth work costs have been eating the budget alive.

Furthermore, the ships that are not seaworthy (the ones without the Coast Guard inspection certificates), have been eating up a lot of the funding they need for SLEPs. “The pace of repair is outpacing the cost of the service life extensions,” Buzby said. Each SLEP costs between $850K to $3.5 million.

Even if everything was going great (which it is not), fully replacing the RRF fleet will take decades, Buzby said.

The Quote: “The Navy is doing a business case analysis on the right mix and timing, but at a minimum we are looking at a 25 to 30-year program to get this entire fleet turned over under current funding levels, on our current path.”

The solution that seems to be coalescing in the short term is to buy as many ships off the open market as possible. Congress has already authorized the Navy to buy seven used commercial ships, but the Navy estimates it will need to buy 26 ships to maintain the 15.3 million square feet of sealift TRANSCOM says the country needs to conduct a major operation overseas. The Maritime Administration believes that there are 64 ships on the market today that could fit the bill.

Wittman, however, has not been impressed with the speed at which the Navy has moved on buying the seven used ships already authorized.

The Quote: We’ve done the work on our end, now Navy need only lift a finger and procure these readily available vessels.

So, the big take-aways from the hearing are:

  • The RRF ships going into SLEP are in much worse condition than MARAD thought.
  • The money programmed for SLEP is getting consumed by repairing ships that have either been decertified for operation by the Coast Guard or that need unplanned maintenance to be able to get underway.
  • Congress is displeased at the pace of the Navy’s acquiring used ships.
  • The Navy is struggling to figure out how to pay this bill and doesn’t seem to have any good ideas, at least not ideas that MARAD and TRANSCOM testified to.
  • Congress wants to accelerate the acquisition of used ships.

On that depressing note, lets move on to The Hotwash.

The Hotwash

Europe Heating Up

More action from the Hill. My colleague Joe Gould sat in on an interesting hearing this week with the head of European Command. It seems they need more ships in Europe.

Excerpt: Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, both head of U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it will take more armored units and U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers, carrier strike groups and amphibious strike groups to stay ahead of Russia’s growing and modernizing forces.

“I’m not comfortable yet with the deterrent posture that we have in Europe in support of the National Defense Strategy,” Scaparrotti told SASC Chair Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., adding: “Of concern is my intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capacity given that increasing and growing threat of Russia. I need more ISR.”

Scaparotti said he has requested two more destroyers for Naval Station Rota, Spain, where the U.S. Navy has four Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyers, which carry the Aegis weapon system. He said he needed better numbers and capabilities, “to stay head of, frankly, the modernization we see in Russia’s maritime forces.”

Read the rest here: Top US general in Europe seeks more troops, warships to counter Russia

Robot Wars

Over at USNI, Sam LaGrone reports that the Navy is looking to get under contract for a medium-displacement unmanned surface vessel by the end of the year.

Excerpt: The Navy is moving fast to acquire a new class of unmanned surface vehicles and hopes to award a contract for USV designs by the end of the year, USNI News has learned.

In the next two months, the service is set to issue a request for proposals for a new class of medium USV, up to 50 meters long, according to an unclassified readout of the program reviewed by USNI News.

According to a notional list of requirements, the medium USV will function as a sensor and communications relay as part of a family of unmanned surface systems being developed by the service. The craft will be able to carry a payload equivalent to a 40-foot shipping container, will operate on its own for at least 60 days before needing to return to port, and be capable of refueling at sea.

More Reading

The US Navy’s top acquisition priority is getting a new boss

US ‘Loyal Wingman’ Takes Flight: AFRL & Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie

Navy recruit dies one week before graduation

China to expand navy, prepares to fight trade war with US

Remember last week’s discussion about the Washington Monument Strategy? Check this out:

Pentagon may tap military pay, pensions for border wall


Send me your feedback!

Thank you for supporting The Drift! If you like what you see, please tell your friends to sign up. If you have any questions, concerns or feedback, or if you are a public affairs officer wishing to gripe about something, please email me at dlarter@defensenews.com.


A Message From:

At Perspecta, we question, we seek and we solve. Perspecta brings a diverse set of capabilities to our U.S. government customers. Our 260+ issued, licensed and pending patents are more than pieces of paper, they tell the story of our innovation. With offerings in mission services, digital transformation and enterprise operations, our team of 14,000 engineers, analysts, investigators and architects work tirelessly to not only execute the mission but build and support the backbone that enables it. Perspecta was formed to take on big challenges and we enable our customers to build a better nation. For more information, visit perspecta.com.

 

David B. Larter was the naval warfare reporter for Defense News.

Share:
More In The Drift