Inside Defense
Feb. 5, 2010 -- The Navy's new shipbuilding plan affixes a price tag of as much as $7 billion for each new submarine purchased to modernize the undersea leg of the nation's nuclear triad, the first publicly disclosed estimate and one large enough to significantly encroach on funding for conventional shipbuilding within a decade.
The Navy's new five-year investment plan -- from fiscal years 2011 to 2015 -- includes a down payment to begin work on an Ohio-class submarine (SSBN) replacement, a 12-boat buy that must begin in earnest by FY-19 and could cost between $72 billion and $84 billion, according to the Navy's new 30-year shipbuilding plan delivered to Congress along with the FY-11 budget request.
The “need to fund SSBN recapitalization will result in some risk to the Navy's shipbuilding plan” beyond the Pentagon's current five-year spending plan, the report states. Still, Navy officials drafting an FY-12 to FY-17 investment plan this spring must grapple what ships the service can afford to buy while modernizing its strategic deterrent capability.
“Assuming a unit cost of about $6-$7 billion per ship (consistent with the cost of the Ohio-class SSBN), it is critical to understand the impact of these ships on the remaining recapitalization plan,” states the Navy's “Report to Congress on Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY-11,” dated February 2010.
The Navy plans to continue using a $6 billion to $7 billion range for a new SSBN(X) “until a definitive cost estimate is complete,” the report states. “The estimated cost should be refined and reported in a subsequent report to Congress.”
The Navy's FY-11 budget request includes $609 million in research and development funding for SSGN(X).
The shipbuilding report outlines for the first time how the Ohio-class replacement procurement threatens to compete with resourcing for other ships the Navy wants to buy at the same time.
The SSBN(X) subs “require significant resource commitments during the period when they are being procured,” the report states. “The timing of the replacements for these important strategic assets is inextricably linked to legacy retirements. The latest start for the lead SSBN(X) is FY-19 and the replacements must start reaching the operational force by FY-29. There is no leeway in their plan to allow a later start or any delay in the procurement plan.”
Part of the challenge for the Navy is this: at the same time new SSBN(X) subs are being purchased, the service will be facing “wholesale end-of-service-life retirements” of its Los Angeles-class attack submarine fleet; its CG-47 Ticonderoga class guided missile cruisers; DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers; and LSD 41- and LSD 49-class dock landing ships.
“While the SSBN(X) is being procured, the Navy will be limited in its ability to procure other ship classes,” states the report. “This slowdown in procurement will occur when the Navy needs to be procuring at least 10 ships per year to maintain its force level against the anticipated ship retirements from the 1980s and 1990s.”
The 30-year shipbuilding plan estimates the Navy would require on average $15.9 billion annually. However, in the near term -- between FY-11 and FY-15 -- the Navy needs $14.5 billion per year.
The Pentagon, according to the report, recognizes that spending on new ships during the period between FY-21 and FY-30 “will exceed this limit, averaging about $17.9 billion per year over that period. Executing the procurement of the SSBN program and sustaining minimum levels of acquisition in our remaining critical programs precludes funding this period at a level below that currently projected.”
In a draft version of the Navy shipbuilding plan, first reported by Inside the Pentagon on Dec. 7, the Navy presented an alternative, long-range inventory that would squeeze dozens of conventional warships from its force if the service were required to pay for the SSBN(X) modernization from its own budget, including: 19 DDG-51 destroyers, 15 Littoral Combat Ships, four attack subs, two LPD-17 amphibious ships, one LH(X) amphibious ship, seven T-AO oilers, two sub tenders and six Joint High Speed Vessels.
The final version of the report to Congress does not indicate that the Navy has received any new authority to plan on higher annual allocations. However, the number of conventional ships procured while the SSBN(X) subs are purchased does not plummet as suggested in the draft report. -- Jason Sherman
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