Category: Distributed Maritime Operations

Report to Congress on Navy Medium Landing Ship

The following is the May 24, 2023, Congressional Research Service report Navy Medium Landing Ship (LSM) (Previously Light Amphibious Warship [LAW]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress. From the report The Navy’s Medium Landing Ship (LSM) program, previously called the Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) program, envisions procuring a class of 18 to 35 new amphibious […]

The following is the May 24, 2023, Congressional Research Service report Navy Medium Landing Ship (LSM) (Previously Light Amphibious Warship [LAW]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress.

From the report

The Navy’s Medium Landing Ship (LSM) program, previously called the Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) program, envisions procuring a class of 18 to 35 new amphibious ships to support the Marine Corps, particularly in implementing a new Marine Corps operational concept called Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). The Navy wants to procure the first LSM in FY2025. The Navy’s proposed FY2024 budget requests $14.7 million in research and development funding for the program.

The EABO concept was developed with an eye toward potential conflict scenarios with China in the Western Pacific. Under the concept, the Marine Corps envisions, among other things, having reinforced-platoon-sized Marine Corps units maneuver around the theater, moving from island to island, to fire anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and perform other missions so as to contribute, alongside Navy and other U.S. military forces, to U.S. operations to counter and deny sea control to Chinese forces. The LSMs would be instrumental to these operations, with LSMs embarking, transporting, landing, and subsequently reembarking these small Marine Corps units.

LSMs would be much smaller and individually much less expensive to procure and operate than the Navy’s current amphibious ships. Under the Navy’s FY2024 budget submission, the first LSM would be procured in FY2025 at a cost of $187.9 million, the second LSM would be procured in FY2026 at a cost of $149.2 million, the third and fourth LSMs would be procured in FY2027 at a combined cost of $297.0 million (i.e., an average cost of about $148.5 million each), and the fifth and sixth LSMs in FY2028 at a combined cost of $296.2 million (i.e., an average of about $148.1 million each). The first LSM would cost more than subsequent ships in the program because the procurement cost of the first LSM would include much or all of the detailed design/nonrecurring engineering (DD/NRE) costs for the class. (It is a traditional Navy budgeting practice to include much of all of the DD/NRE costs for a class of ship in the procurement cost of the lead ship in the class.)

The LSM as outlined by the Navy could be built by any of several U.S. shipyards. The Navy’s baseline preference is to have a single shipyard build all the ships, but the Navy is open to having them built in multiple yards to the same design if doing so could permit the program to be implemented more quickly and/or less expensively. The Navy’s FY2024 budget submission states that the contract for the construction of the first LSM would be awarded in December 2024, and that the ship would be delivered in July 2028.

The LSM program poses a number of potential oversight matters for Congress. The issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify the Navy’s annual funding requests and envisioned acquisition strategy for the program. Congress’s decisions regarding the program could affect Navy and Marine Corps capabilities and funding requirements and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

Download the document here.

Report to Congress on Navy Medium Landing Ship

The following is the April 13, 2023, Congressional Research Service report Navy Medium Landing Ship (LSM) (Previously Light Amphibious Warship [LAW]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress. From the report The Navy’s Medium Landing Ship (LSM) program, previously called the Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) program, envisions procuring a class of 18 to 35 new amphibious […]

The following is the April 13, 2023, Congressional Research Service report Navy Medium Landing Ship (LSM) (Previously Light Amphibious Warship [LAW]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress.

From the report

The Navy’s Medium Landing Ship (LSM) program, previously called the Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) program, envisions procuring a class of 18 to 35 new amphibious ships to support the Marine Corps, particularly in implementing a new Marine Corps operational concept called Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). The Navy wants to procure the first LSM in FY2025. The Navy’s proposed FY2024 budget requests $14.7 million in research and development funding for the program.

The EABO concept was developed with an eye toward potential conflict scenarios with China in the Western Pacific. Under the concept, the Marine Corps envisions, among other things, having reinforced-platoon-sized Marine Corps units maneuver around the theater, moving from island to island, to fire anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and perform other missions so as to contribute, alongside Navy and other U.S. military forces, to U.S. operations to counter and deny sea control to Chinese forces. The LSMs would be instrumental to these operations, with LSMs embarking, transporting, landing, and subsequently reembarking these small Marine Corps units.

LSMs would be much smaller and individually much less expensive to procure and operate than the Navy’s current amphibious ships. Under the Navy’s FY2024 budget submission, the first LSM would be procured in FY2025 at a cost of $187.9 million, the second LSM would be procured in FY2026 at a cost of $149.2 million, the third and fourth LSMs would be procured in FY2027 at a combined cost of $297.0 million (i.e., an average cost of about $148.5 million each), and the fifth and sixth LSMs in FY2028 at a combined cost of $296.2 million (i.e., an average of about $148.1 million each). The first LSM would cost more than subsequent ships in the program because the procurement cost of the first LSM would include much or all of the detailed design/nonrecurring engineering (DD/NRE) costs for the class. (It is a traditional Navy budgeting practice to include much of all of the DD/NRE costs for a class of ship in the procurement cost of the lead ship in the class.)

The LSM as outlined by the Navy could be built by any of several U.S. shipyards. The Navy’s baseline preference is to have a single shipyard build all the ships, but the Navy is open to having them built in multiple yards to the same design if doing so could permit the program to be implemented more quickly and/or less expensively. The Navy’s FY2024 budget submission states that the contract for the construction of the first LSM would be awarded in December 2024, and that the ship would be delivered in July 2028.

The LSM program poses a number of potential oversight matters for Congress. The issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify the Navy’s annual funding requests and envisioned acquisition strategy for the program. Congress’s decisions regarding the program could affect Navy and Marine Corps capabilities and funding requirements and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

Download the document here.

CMC Berger to Senate: ‘There’s No Plan’ to Meet Amphib Warship Requirements

The Marine Corps’ top officer told a Senate panel that he put a $1.75 billion warship on the top of his unfunded priorities list to show there’s no path to expand the U.S. amphibious ship inventory. Speaking before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on Tuesday, Commandant Gen. David Berger said he saw a net reduction […]

Amphibious warship Richard M. McCool, Jr., (LPD-29) on Aug. 4, 2022. USNI News Photo

The Marine Corps’ top officer told a Senate panel that he put a $1.75 billion warship on the top of his unfunded priorities list to show there’s no path to expand the U.S. amphibious ship inventory.

Speaking before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on Tuesday, Commandant Gen. David Berger said he saw a net reduction in the amphibious ship force because of the retirement of three older landing ship docks (LSDs) with no planned replacement with new shipbuilding. This prompted his decision to include funding for a San Antonio-class (LPD-17) amphib on his unfunded priorities list.

“This budget proposes early decommissioning of three of those LSDs with no construction or acquisition of an LPD. For my role as defining what the requirements are – the statutory minimum of 31 – there’s no plan to get there. From my perspective, I didn’t see any other way than to put it on the unfunded list in order to reflect that. There’s no plan to get to the minimum requirements,” he said in response to questions from Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).

Berger warned that without adequate amphibious shipping to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts, the U.S. runs the risk of China filling in with its own assets.

“When we can’t respond when we have to, then our allies’ and partners’ trust goes down. In all likelihood, the way the Chinese Navy is growing and they’re expanding, they’re liable to try to step in and we can’t afford that to happen,” he said.

Berger’s comments come as the Department of the Navy and Pentagon continue to struggle over how they will develop a future amphibious force. While Berger and other Navy leaders have acknowledged a requirement for 31 amphibious ships to meet the Marines’ latest island-hopping concept, the Navy zeroed out the budget line for new amphibious ships over the next five years, as the service takes a “strategic pause” on buying new gators while it takes on new studies mandated by the Pentagon, USNI News previously reported.

As part of the budget rollout earlier this month, Pentagon budget officials called the current amphibious ship inventory in the near-term “sufficient.”

Meanwhile, the Navy is working on the latest fleet assessment it plans to deliver to Congress – the Battle Force Ship Assessment and Requirement (BFSAR) – in late spring.

“I’ve committed to Congress to deliver that report by the 10th of June this year, and I will make that deadline. We are on track with our analysis team to do that,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday told the panel.

The new BFSAR is a follow-up on the assessment Congress ordered last year that put the goal of 373 ships to support the roles and missions required of the Navy in the long term. The details of the last year’s assessment were classified, but shortly after its delivery to Congress, Gilday issued a public plan for the Navy’s Force Design 2045.

The notional 2045 Navy calls for:

  • 12 Columbia-class ballistic missile nuclear submarines
  • 12 Aircraft carriers
  • 66 Submarines, split between fast attack and large diameter payload boats
  • 96 Large surface combatants like the Arleigh Burke class destroyer and the emerging DDG(X) next-generation destroyer
  • 56 Constellation-class guided-missile frigates
  • 31 Large amphibious ships
  • 18 Light amphibious warships to support Marine Littoral Regiments
  • 82 Combat logistics ships and auxiliaries
  • 150 large surface and subsurface unmanned vessels that will act as sensors and auxiliary magazines to the manned fleet

He told the panel that he expected the underlying details of the plan to change with the new assessment.

“With respect to, not only the size, but the composition of the fleet, I would expect that to change from the last report, particularly in terms of composition. It’s too early to tell with respect to size, but quite honestly, I can’t see it getting any smaller than 373 manned ships,” Gilday said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) raised questions about how the service would meet its long-term shipbuilding goals when the current budget outlook results in a net negative of five battle force ships from now through Fiscal Year 2028. Under its latest long-range shipbuilding plan, the service would need to craft a budget at about 5 percent above the rate of inflation to hit its 373 goal, Gilday told Graham.

“If we’re at 296 [battle force ships] today and under this budget, we’re going to be at 291 in [Fiscal Year] 28. How do we get to 373?” Graham asked.
“The budget you’re supporting [today] is below inflation. And you’re telling us to get to where we want to go, we’ve got to be above inflation by 5 percent. If this is a good budget, I would hate to see a bad budget.”

Graham asked Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro if the bottleneck was due to funding or shipbuilding capacity

“Do we have a shipbuilding industry problem, or do we have a budget problem?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Del Toro.

“We have a shipbuilding industry problem, currently Senator,” Del Toro said.

PACFLEET CO Paparo Talks Combat Logistics, Chinese Coercion  

SAN DIEGO – The U.S. Navy needs to shed 20 years of how it rearmed and repaired its fleet and prepare for a future of increased risk and contested logistics, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said Tuesday. The old way the U.S. moved material forward in the most cost-effective manner is no longer […]

Naval Aircrewman (Helicopter) 3rd Class Taquan West, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 5, keeps watch over the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) and the fast combat support ship USNS Arctic (T-AOE-8) on June 28, 2022. US Navy Photo

SAN DIEGO – The U.S. Navy needs to shed 20 years of how it rearmed and repaired its fleet and prepare for a future of increased risk and contested logistics, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said Tuesday.

The old way the U.S. moved material forward in the most cost-effective manner is no longer sufficient for how the Navy and Marines will fight in the future, said Adm. Samuel Paparo, citing the worldwide proliferation of guided weapons and satellite surveillance.

“Operating in uncontested environments our logistics enterprises operate on business principles. Those business principles were to resupply the force at maximum efficiency so that the American taxpayer dollar could be applied to combat power at the greatest point of need,” he said during a keynote at the WEST 2023 conference co-hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute and AFCEA.
“In our operational plans for high-end combat, we’ve got to think less in terms of maximum efficiency and more in terms of maximum effectiveness.”

The reality of vulnerable supply lines for naval units forward and the difficulty repairing and rearming ships forward has become a tricky problem set for the Navy and the Marines that are shaping concepts to fight spread across the sea.

“The country is facing the prospect of combat loss and we must be clear-eyed about that,” Paparo said.
“We no longer have the sanctuary of time and distance from adversary weapons.”

While the services have said their new emerging concepts like Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) are meant to be used in any geography, the ultimate challenge is the vast distances in the Pacific. Marines and surface ships in the Western Pacific will have to operate under a web of Chinese ballistic missiles and will have to remain concealed while still striking targets.

The basic tenants of DMO would have ships operating at extreme distances and hitting their targets simultaneously while remaining hidden.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, addresses the crew of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) following the completion of their maintenance availability on June 29, 2021. US Navy Photo

“The idea of [DMO] is this notion that we’re going to sail at such a distance and in such a formation that we don’t present ourselves as an obvious military formation that brings to their enemy fires, but while still maintaining the ability to provide mutual support to one another,” Paparo said.

The Marines’ EABO concept would have small units land ashore with anti-ship weapons or create an expeditionary landing site for fighters with the ability to move to other locations throughout the battlefield quickly. Making the effort work will require a combination of pre-positioning material and quickly flowing supplies across thousands of miles of ocean. 

“For most people use a sustainment and they think root logistics,” Paparo said.
“It’s also repair activities. It’s also rearming activities. It’s also… medical capabilities.”

Answering a question on fixing battle-damaged ships, Paparo described an “arc of contested sustainment that is not precisely at the zone of fire but nor is it back way in the rear where you would normally expect to be able to execute those activities in a sanctuary.”

For example, Paparo described flyaway repair teams that could meet battle-damaged ships for repairs, “including equipment that can be transported to the point of need to execute those repairs quickly and to get units back into the fight,” he said.

Paparo said the fleet had experimented with rearming ships at sea and flyaway repair teams at the recent Valiant Shield and Rim of the Pacific exercise series.

The logistics conversation came as Paparo outlined the growing boldness of Chinese actions in the Western Pacific citing the recent lasing of a Philippine Coast Guard vessel on a resupply mission by a Chinese ship and the continued ballistic missile testing and air and sea exercises around Taiwan.

“We are living in consequential times, a period of intense competition and high stakes,” he said.
“We cannot normalize this intentional malign behavior by the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party, which we see in the form of territorial aggression against its neighbors, including consistently failing to adhere to [maritime and rules of the road] with unprofessional and unsafe behavior at sea.”

Report to Congress on the Light Amphibious Warship

The following is the July 20, 2022, Congressional Research Service report Navy Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) Program: Background and Issues for Congress. From the report The Navy’s Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) program envisions procuring a class of up to 35 new amphibious ships to support the Marine Corps, particularly in implementing a new Marine Corps […]

The following is the July 20, 2022, Congressional Research Service report Navy Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) Program: Background and Issues for Congress.

From the report

The Navy’s Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) program envisions procuring a class of up to 35 new amphibious ships to support the Marine Corps, particularly in implementing a new Marine Corps operational concept called Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). The Navy had previously envisioned procuring the first LAW in FY2023, but the Navy’s FY2023 budget submission defers the procurement of the first LAW to FY2025. The Navy’s proposed FY2023 budget requests $12.2 million in research and development funding for the program.

The EABO concept was developed with an eye toward potential conflict scenarios with China in the Western Pacific. Under the concept, the Marine Corps envisions, among other things, having reinforced-platoon-sized Marine Corps units maneuver around the theater, moving from island to island, to fire anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and perform other missions so as to contribute, alongside Navy and other U.S. military forces, to U.S. operations to counter and deny sea control to Chinese forces. The LAW ships would be instrumental to these operations, with LAWs embarking, transporting, landing, and subsequently reembarking these small Marine Corps units.

LAWs would be much smaller and individually much less expensive to procure and operate than the Navy’s current amphibious ships. Under the Navy’s FY2023 budget submission, the first LAW would be procured in FY2025 at a cost of $247.0 million, the second LAW would be procured in FY2026 at a cost of $203.0 million, and the third and fourth LAWs would be procured in FY2027 at a combined cost of $290.0 million (i.e., an average cost of $145.0 million each). The first LAW would cost substantially more than subsequent ships in the program because the procurement cost of the first LAW would include much or all of the detailed design/nonrecurring engineering (DD/NRE) costs for the class. (It is a traditional Navy budgeting practice to include much of all of the DD/NRE costs for a class of ship in the procurement cost of the lead ship in the class.)

The LAW as outlined by the Navy could be built by any of several U.S. shipyards. The Navy’s baseline preference is to have a single shipyard build all the ships, but the Navy is open to having them built in multiple yards to the same design if doing so could permit the program to be implemented more quickly and/or less expensively. The Navy’s FY2023 budget submission states that the contract for the construction of the first LAW would be awarded in December 2024, and that the ship would be delivered in July 2028.

The LAW program poses a number of potential oversight matters for Congress. The issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify the Navy’s annual funding requests and envisioned acquisition strategy for the program. Congress’s decisions regarding the program could affect Navy and Marine Corps capabilities and funding requirements and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

Download the document here.

New Navy Fleet Study Calls for 373 Ship Battle Force, Details are Classified

THE PENTAGON – The Navy quietly slipped a new, classified assessment on the number of ships the service needs to meet its missions around the world to Congress earlier this month. The report calls for a battle force of 373 ships – 75 more than in the current fleet. Dubbed the Battle Force Ship Assessment […]

Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109), left, conducts a replenishment-at-sea with Supply-class fast combat support ship USNS Supply (T-AOE-6), in the Ionian Sea on May 6, 2022. US Navy Photo

THE PENTAGON – The Navy quietly slipped a new, classified assessment on the number of ships the service needs to meet its missions around the world to Congress earlier this month. The report calls for a battle force of 373 ships – 75 more than in the current fleet.

Dubbed the Battle Force Ship Assessment and Requirement, the Fiscal Year 2021 defense authorization bill called for the Navy to generate the report and deliver it directly to Congress.

“The Navy’s Battle Force Ship Assessment and Requirement (BFSAR) report determined that a battle force of 373 ships is required to meet future campaigning and warfighting demands. The report is classified and was submitted to Congress,” reads a statement from the service provided to USNI News.

Outside of the fleet total, the service did not provide an unclassified summary of the force structure. In prior years, the FSA has included an unclassified summary of the the required quantities for each type of battleforce ship in the fleet.

The new report is the latest in a long string of force structure reviews since 2016 as the service and big Pentagon have wrestled with the composition of the future fleet.

The requirement in the bill was designed to have the report bypass the Office of the Secretary of Defense and go directly to Congress, several legislative sources have told USNI News. OSD took a more active role in crafting the Navy’s force structure under former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and senior leadership has continued to be involved in the force structure process.

In February, the Navy rolled out a long-range shipbuilding plan that laid out three different versions of a battle force into 2052, depending on the number of resources the service is allocated. The first option would yield an inventory of 316 ships by FY 2052, the second would yield 327 ships by FY 2052 and the third would yield 367 ships.

Chief of Naval Operations Mike Gilday speaking on Jan. 11, 2022 from his office in the Pentagon. US Navy Photo

Those would be buttressed by emerging unmanned platforms that would extend the range of the Navy’s sensors and deepen magazines beyond its manned ships and submarines.

With those additions, the fleet could grow to 500 hulls or more, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said ahead of the long-range ship rollout in remarks during the WEST 2022 conference, co-hosted by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute.

The most recent review follows the latest revision of the National Defense Strategy, which refines the Pentagon’s approach to countering China in the Pacific and Russia in Europe. Much of the detail of the updated NDS is classified, with the Office of the Secretary of Defense releasing a scant two-page summary of the overall goals.

The force structure will go through more tweaks before another revision is released later this year.

“The Navy is expected to complete a second BFSAR later this year, which will reflect new analytic work, changes to force design, and the impacts of the 2022 National Defense Strategy released in March on future Navy battle force structure,” reads the Navy statement.

CNO Gilday: ‘We Need a Naval Force of Over 500 Ships’

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The U.S. Navy needs a fleet of more than 500 ships to meet its commitments to the soon-to-be released National Defense Strategy, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said on Friday.  “I’ve concluded – consistent with the analysis – that we need a naval force of over 500 ships,” Gilday […]

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG-111), left, USS America (LHA-6), and Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), transit the Philippine Sea on Jan. 22, 2022. US Navy Photo

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The U.S. Navy needs a fleet of more than 500 ships to meet its commitments to the soon-to-be released National Defense Strategy, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said on Friday. 

“I’ve concluded – consistent with the analysis – that we need a naval force of over 500 ships,” Gilday said during the WEST 2022 conference, co-hosted by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute.

“We need 12 carriers. We need a strong amphibious force to include nine big-deck amphibs and another 19 or 20 [LPDs] to support them. Perhaps 30 or more smaller amphibious ships to support Maritime Littoral Regiments… to 60 destroyers and probably 50 frigates, 70 attack submarines and a dozen ballistic missile submarines to about a 100 support ships and probably looking into the future about 150 unmanned.”

According to Gilday’s list, that force would be about 513 ships with 263 manned combatants, plus 100 logistics and supply ships and 150 unmanned vessels. Gilday told reporters later that the total would include Littoral Combat Ships.

“LCS is in that mix,” he said.

The numbers Gilday said on Friday are largely in line with a notional high-end total included in the abbreviated Fiscal Year 2022 long-range shipbuilding plan. The ongoing congressionally-mandated force structure assessment will inform the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, Gilday said. But details of the FSA have largely been under wraps as the Pentagon continues to craft its next national defense strategy.

“We’re going through another force structure assessment right now, but based on the hard work we’ve done over the last five or six years we’re thinking about how we would fight,” Gilday said. “How would we fight differently in terms of a wide, vast ocean like the Pacific?”

For the last three years, the Navy’s future force structure has been in flux, undergoing several different fleet reviews while the Department of the Navy and Pentagon leadership underwent unprecedented churn in 2019 and 2020.

The attempt at a force structure assessment led to the Trump administration releasing an ambitious fleet plan toward the end of its tenure. The Biden administration shelved the plan shortly after President Joe Biden took office, prompting the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of the Defense to again reevaluate the force under new Pentagon leadership and the prospect of a flat budget outlay.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday speaking at WEST 2022 on Feb. 18, 2022.

Over the last year, the Navy has set out on an aggressive testing program to refine the emerging Distributed Maritime Operations concept that will connect crewed and unmanned ships and aircraft to operate in concert across the vast distances of the Pacific.

In particular, Large Scale Exercise 2021 tested DMO – in addition to the Marines Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment – across three combatant commands in a networked exercise with live and simulated exercises. The Navy and Marines are also testing deployed carrier strike and amphibious ready groups with complicated battle problems that further test the underlying concepts. Meanwhile, in U.S. 5th Fleet, the ongoing testing of small unmanned vessels is refining how the service thinks about employing them in the future.

“The real message I wanted to get out of those numbers, it’s actually grounded on how we’re going to fight,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Marine Corps has an ongoing amphibious ship requirements study that it will ultimately deliver to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said the study is about 30 to 45 days away from completion and he expects the analysis to call for approximately 31 amphibious ships. So far, Del Toro has received two progress updates about the study, Berger said.

“If it’s anything like the previous studies – we’ve had I think 12 studies in the last 13 years – every one of them came out about 31 amphib ships,” Berger told reporters at WEST. “So I don’t know what this one will come to, but I can’t see it radically different from that. That’s requirements. That’s our Marine Corps requirement. That’s maybe different from what the nation can afford.”

The study is assessing the requirements for both large amphibious ships and the Light Amphibious Warship, which the Marine Corps wants to shuttle Marines around islands and shorelines in the Indo-Pacific. LAW is supposed to have a beaching capability so it can easily deliver Marines to the shore. While the Marine Corps is behind the push for LAW, money to purchase the platform would come out of the Navy’s shipbuilding account.

Gilday’s affirmation of the fleet follows reports the that the Biden administration is planning late influx funds into the Pentagon budget for FY 2023. USNI News reported earlier this week that the new topline could be as high $773 billion.

CNO Gilday Taking a More ‘Realistic’ Approach to Unmanned  Systems in the Fleet

SAN DIEGO, Cailf., – In the next five years the Navy wants to put smaller unmanned platforms in the fleet now while it waits for larger unmanned ships and aircraft to reach a level of reliability to fight with the crewed fleet in the 2030s, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday told a group […]

A Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vessel (USV) sails in the Gulf of Aqaba off of Jordan’s coast on Dec. 12, 2021. US Army Photo

SAN DIEGO, Cailf., – In the next five years the Navy wants to put smaller unmanned platforms in the fleet now while it waits for larger unmanned ships and aircraft to reach a level of reliability to fight with the crewed fleet in the 2030s, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday told a group of reporters on Wednesday.

China has the largest navy by hull count, 355, and the U.S. wants to blunt Beijing’s advantage by augmenting its manned ships and aircraft with unmanned and lightly crewed platforms that expand the awareness and weapons of the fleet, Gilday said.

“We feel that we have a very good understanding of how conceptually, we’re going to fight in the future, that’s now informing what we’re going to fight with what we believe to be a very large area, coming at an aggressor across many different vectors,” he said. “Capabilities [are] really important, but that capability is going to be a derivative of capacity.”

But how quickly the Navy can develop the platforms is an open question. The fielding for the unmanned systems has been slowed by Congressional requirements that call for the service to complete an extensive testing program before buying a fleet of unmanned ships.

Faced with limited budgets and a growing Chinese threat, Gilday wants to take a “realistic approach and evolutionary approach to finally getting to the point, hopefully, in the 2030s, where we really do have a hybrid fleet, where we can make Distributed Maritime Operations come alive in a way that would be highly effective if we actually had to fight,” he said.

USVs Ranger and Nomad unmanned vessels underway in the Pacific Ocean near the Channel Islands on July 3, 2021. US Navy Photo

The service has concept design contracts out for the Medium and Large Unmanned Surface Vehicles that would conceptually deploy with crewed guided-missile warships and amphibious ships. The ships would extend the range of the sensors and provide remote weapons magazines that could fire when cued by a crewed warship. Those ships – some as large as a 2000-ton corvette – are subject to the Congressional testing requirement.

“We’re moving in an evolutionary instead of a revolutionary manner, in order to deliver a platform [that] is going to be reliable and that’s actually going to perform as intended,” Gilday said. “We could actually learn greatly from our land-based engineering test sites … specifically up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where we can take an engineering configuration that we want to use on a specific platform.”

While the Navy is proving those systems to Congress, Gilday wants to get other types of smaller vehicles into the fleet sooner.

He used the ongoing experimentation with U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59 and International Maritime Exercise 22 as a test case for what can be done with smaller systems that can be employed faster.

U.S. 5th Fleet is using commercial unmanned surface systems that include the wind-powered, 23-foot-long Saildrone Explorer that has operated out of Jordan and MARTAC’s Mantas T12 USV that has operated from Bahrain. Gilday also said the Navy is studying unmanned systems used by other exercise participants including, Israel and India.

The Navy is also experimenting with unmanned ships and aircraft that can be deployed from almost any ship.

“If there are small unmanned aviation assets that can fly a couple of thousand miles and have payloads that extend our range for [information, surveillance and reconnaissance] it makes me less dependent upon programs like a MUSV. Maybe I don’t have to buy as many of those,” Gilday said.
“Maybe I just have to invest in smaller platforms that are also more expendable, but allow me to deploy them off of a variety of platforms, and extend our ISR range, or even our weapons range if they’re if we can weaponize some of those variants.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday addresses the crew of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) during Exercise Malabar on Oct. 14, 2021 in the Bay of Bengal. US Navy Photo

While the mechanical reliability of the platforms is a major point of concern, so are the networks that transmit the targeting data. The service plans to use its existing networks to transmit surveillance data and targeting information the same way a smartphones transitions from lower to different networks as a user moves from Wi-Fi to a cellular data network.

“The software on the phone shifts you to a [cell] network automatically. You don’t care, the phone doesn’t care, you’re just getting, you’re just getting the information you want when you want it. It’s that same type of idea where software would decide,” Gilday said.
“The system would then containerize it in a way that could ride on any one of those lightning bolts. It could move on any one of those systems to get to the endpoint system. It’s leveraging the fact that every shooter doesn’t necessarily have to sense the target that you’re going to that it is going to fire at. That it can be set the target it can be… radio silent.”

The Navy has tested the software-defined system in San Diego and Gilday said there are plans to test a battle group with the concept later this year or in early 2023.

The new tack from the Navy will get new unmanned systems to the fleet faster and inform the larger systems that are developing more slowly.

“We thought that was important, or I thought that was important from a risk-reduction standpoint so that we could begin to mature and then hopefully scale unmanned capabilities at a faster pace,” he said.

Report to Congress on Navy Light Amphibious Warship

The following is the Dec 9, 2021, Congressional Research Service report Navy Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) Program: Background and Issues for Congress. From the report The Navy’s new Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) program envisions procuring a class of 24 to 35 new amphibious ships to support the Marine Corps, particularly in implementing a new Marine […]

The following is the Dec 9, 2021, Congressional Research Service report Navy Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) Program: Background and Issues for Congress.

From the report

The Navy’s new Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) program envisions procuring a class of 24 to 35 new amphibious ships to support the Marine Corps, particularly in implementing a new Marine Corps operational concept called Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). (A June 17, 2021, long-range Navy shipbuilding document envisions procuring a total of 24 to 35 LAWs, while other Navy documents refer to a requirement for 35 LAWs.) The Navy envisions the first LAW being procured in FY2023. The Navy’s proposed FY2022 budget requests $13.2 million in research and development funding for the program.

The EABO concept was developed with an eye toward potential conflict scenarios with China in the Western Pacific. Under the concept, the Marine Corps envisions, among other things, having reinforced-platoon-sized Marine Corps units maneuver around the theater, moving from island to island, to fire anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and perform other missions so as to contribute, alongside Navy and other U.S. military forces, to U.S. operations to counter and deny sea control to Chinese forces. The LAW ships would be instrumental to these operations, with LAWs embarking, transporting, landing, and subsequently reembarking these small Marine Corps units.

As conceived by the Navy and Marine Corps, LAWs would be much smaller and individually much less expensive to procure and operate than the Navy’s current amphibious ships. The Navy estimates that the first LAW would cost about $156 million to procure, and that subsequent LAWs would cost about $130 million each to procure.

The LAW as outlined by the Navy is small enough that it could be built by any of several U.S. shipyards. The Navy’s baseline preference is to have a single shipyard build all the ships, but the Navy is open to having them built in multiple yards to the same design if doing so could permit the program to be implemented more quickly and/or less expensively. The Navy plans to release the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the detail design and construction (DD&C) contract for the LAW program in the second quarter of FY2022, and to award the contract in the first quester of FY2023.

The LAW program poses a number of potential oversight matters for Congress, including the merits of the EABO concept, how LAWs would fit into the Navy’s future fleet architecture, the Navy’s preliminary unit procurement cost target for the ship, and the industrial-base implications of the program.

The issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify the Navy’s annual funding requests and envisioned acquisition strategy for the program. Congress’s decisions regarding the program could affect Navy and Marine Corps capabilities and funding requirements and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

Download the document here.

Top Stories 2020: U.S. Navy Acquisition

This post is part of a series of stories looking back at the top naval news from 2020. 2020 may be among the most consequential years for Navy acquisition in recent memory, with the service making big moves in support of its Distributed Maritime Operations operating concept. 2020 was the year the Navy officially started construction […]

Attack boat Vermont (SSN-792) float-off on March 29, 2019. General Dynamics Electric Boats Photo

This post is part of a series of stories looking back at the top naval news from 2020. 2020 may be among the most consequential years for Navy acquisition in recent memory, with the service making big moves in support of its Distributed Maritime Operations operating concept. 2020 was the year the Navy officially started construction on the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program, a massive every-other-generation effort to replace the sea-based nuclear deterrent subs. It was also the year the Constellation-class guided-missile frigate program was awarded to Fincantieri, who will design and build what will become a centerpiece of the future distributed fleet. It was the year the Navy called for an end to the F/A-18E-F Super Hornet program, reinvesting that money into a longer-range next-generation fighter that could help silence critics who say the aircraft carrier will be useless against China because the air wing’s range is too short. And it was the year the Navy and its Marine Corps partners moved out on a Light Amphibious Warship that could revolutionize how the Fleet Marine Force moves around a maritime theater in support of sea control and sea denial.

Surface Ships

Fincantieri FFG(X) Design based on the FREMM. Fincantieri Image

The surface fleet is among the parts of the Navy most changed by Distributed Maritime Operations. Rather than the Navy’s recent reliance on guided-missile cruisers and destroyers to drill with allies and partners, patrol chokepoints and conduct freedom of navigation operations, the Navy will instead rely on a large fleet of small combatants to do much of this day-to-day work, freeing up a smaller number of destroyers to conduct higher-end operations and haul around large, long-range missiles. Key to this plan is the success of the Constellation-class frigate. The Navy awarded a $795-million contract to Fincantieri on April 30 to do detail design work and build the first frigate in the class. Options for as many as nine more ships would bring the total value to $5.58 billion if exercised. Fincantieri beat out four other competitors with a design based on the FREMM multi-mission frigate already operated by the French and Italian navies. It will build the frigate at its Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin. In October, the class officially received a name, with Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite announcing the first-in-class ship would be USS Constellation (FFG-62) – after it was nearly named USS Agility by former SECNAV Thomas Modly earlier in the year. Though there will be fewer large combatants in the fleet, their mission will remain important: Navy leadership has said the large combatants of the future will haul around the biggest missiles, including hypersonic weapons.

USS Detroit (LCS-7) sails in formation with the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Lassen (DDG-82), USS Preble (DDG-88) and USS Farragut (DDG-99) while conducting maritime security operations in the Caribbean Sea. US Navy Photo

The Navy is still struggling to figure out how to get the ship it needs for a price it can afford, given the deemphasis on the large combatant portfolio in future fleet plans. What was once a 2023 start to the Large Surface Combatant program was pushed to 2025 and then 2026 – and this year, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said the large combatant, which he calls “DDG-Next,” will begin detail design in 2026 and construction in 2028. New and important to the DMO concept – and the related Marine Corps concepts of Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE) and Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO) – are the Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) and the Next-Generation Logistics Ship (NGLS) programs that kicked off this year. After some Marine Corps officials had kicked around the idea of a stern-landing vessel for EABO operations last year, in February the Navy included in its Fiscal Year 2021 budget request $30 million each to begin working on the new amphib and new logistics ship.

Sea Transport Solutions Image

Throughout the summer, the vision of what LAW would become grew clearer, as the Marines made the case for small units operating outside the Amphibious Ready Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit construct. These units would move from shore to shore, providing the joint force forward refueling and rearming capabilities in remote locations, collecting intelligence, providing anti-ship and even anti-submarine strike capabilities, and more. Their small footprint and maneuverability with the LAWs would make them hard for an adversary to detect and hit. By the fall, a cost estimate of about $100 million apiece, as well as requirements for length, storage capacity, crewing and more emerged, showing the dedication to begin buying the ships in FY 2022. According to the long-range shipbuilding plan that accompanied the release of Battle Force 2045, the Next-Generation Logistics Ship would kick off procurement in FY 2023, though much less is known about that new ship compared to the LAW. This medium-sized ship would be able to help resupply the distributed Navy and Marine forces operating under DMO and EABO, while blending in with local merchant traffic and being harder for an adversary to target and disrupt the flow of supplies into theater. It’s unclear how far along the Navy is in developing its requirements. A previous effort for a somewhat larger set of ships to do resupply and other missions, called the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-mission Platform (CHAMP), has hit several roadblocks as its price tag remains higher than Navy and White House officials are comfortable spending on an auxiliary ship.

Submarines

Virginia-class submarine Delaware (SSN-791) was moved out of a construction facility into a floating dry dock using a transfer car system in 2018. HII Photo

The Navy in November awarded $9.47 billion to General Dynamics Electric Boat to officially start construction on the first ballistic-missile submarine in the Columbia class. This SSBN program is the Navy’s all-important program with no room for error or delays, after all schedule margin was eaten up in the early days of the program and the future USS Columbia (SSBN-826) must be ready for its first patrol in the fall of 2030. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Columbia program remained on track, in a nod to the importance on the program and the Navy prioritizing resources – available workers, materials and money – to keeping this program on track, even if it means attack submarines or aircraft carriers slipping in schedule. Still, though the program has remained on track, the Navy announced last month it was looking at extending the life of the legacy Ohio-class SSBNs – again – to provide a bit of additional capacity for combatant commanders and a bit of cushion in case there are hiccups in the future with the Columbia program. Partly as a result of keeping Columbia on track, the Virginia-class attack submarines slipped further behind in production this year, after already having some schedule delays as the program tried to maintain a two-a-year production rate. Threatening to further challenge the program was a White House proposal to buy just one SSN in FY 2021, which would throw off the workflow for thousands of suppliers trying to smoothly ramp up their production rates to accommodate both the Virginia and the Columbia programs. The White House reversed course in late November and expressed support for a second Virginia sub. Looking towards the future, the Navy this year made headway planning for its Block VI Virginia design – which would add new capability and lethality such as improved stealth and the ability to conduct seabed warfare – as well as the SSN(X) design that would build upon both Block VI and the Columbia SSBN design. All told, the Navy is trying to morph its attack submarine fleet to something closer to the Seawolf class, which was designed to operate deep into Soviet waters and go head-to-head with peer adversary subs, compared to the Virginia class which was originally designed for land-attack and intelligence-collection missions.

Carrier Aviation

Sailors assigned to the air department aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) prepare to launch an F/A-18F Super Hornet attached to the Gladiators of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 106 during flight operations, March 29, 2020. US Navy Photo

Even as the Navy continued on with its Ford-class carriers this year, questions began swirling about the class’s future and what might come next to either replace or to supplement the Ford-class supercarrier. In March, Modly kicked off a Blue-Ribbon Future Carrier 2030 Task Force to look at the future of aircraft carriers and whether the U.S. Navy would stick with the Ford class beyond the future Doris Miller (CVN-81), whether it would move to a different nuclear-powered carrier design, or whether it would use conventionally powered carriers. Despite the prominent figures on the task force, it was not particularly well received: any reduction in demand for nuclear ship components could break the fragile industrial base, some worried, while others were concerned that the 11-carrier fleet was already overworked today and that the task force could lead to a reduction in CVNs in the future without a reduction in demand for their presence in theater. Though the study itself was canceled just two months later by Acting SECNAV James McPherson, the idea lingered: former Defense Secretary Mark Esper became interested in the notion of a conventionally powered light carrier to supplement the nuclear-powered supercarrier, and after months of study he settled on a plan to field eight to 11 CVNs – possibly down from today’s 11 – and supplement them with as many as six CVLs. He and Navy officials conceded that much work needed to be done to figure out what the CVL would look like and how to balance the two classes of ships.

Aviation Ordnancemen assigned to USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN 78) weapons department bring inert training bombs up to the flight deck during flight operations May 30, 2020. Ford is underway in the Atlantic Ocean conducting integrated air wing operations. US Navy photo.

Despite the questions about the future of carriers, the Ford-class program continued along, with USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) at times spending more days at sea than in port to conduct post-delivery tests and trials and get ready for full-ship shock trials next summer. Despite PDT&T moving ahead of schedule and the troubled Advanced Weapons Elevators finally coming online in numbers, the Navy fired its CVN-78 program manager and brought in a captain with “proven program management acumen and extensive waterfront experience” to see Ford through its remaining work before being fully turned over to the fleet for a maiden deployment.

Aircraft

An F/A-18E Super Hornet, attached to the ‘Dambusters’ of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 195, prepares to land on the flight deck of USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) on Oct. 16, 2020. US Navy Photo

In a major move for carrier aviation, the Navy announced in February in its FY 2021 budget request that it would not continue Super Hornet production beyond the end of the current multiyear contract, which runs through FY 2021. Funding that had been planned for another contract for FY 2022 through 2024 would instead be diverted to “accelerated development of Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) and other key aviation wholeness investments.” With little fanfare, the Navy stood up an NGAD program office under Naval Air Systems Command in May and quickly began industry talks. Though investing in NGAD was the primary reason for ending the Super Hornet line, the Navy also said that stopping new Super Hornet production would free up the production line for Super Hornet life extension work, which the Navy needs to add capability to the jets and keep them around long enough for a replacement to be designed and built.

Sailors assigned to Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Squadron (VRM) 30 direct a CMV-22B Osprey from the ‘Titans’ of VRM 30 on the flight deck of Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) on Nov. 20, 2020. US Navy Photo

Supporting a near-term change for the carrier air wing, Bell-Boeing delivered the first CMV-22B Osprey to the Navy in February, allowing the Navy to start a short test and evaluation program before turning the aircraft over to the operational squadron that will support the first deployment in 2021. The Navy needs the CMV-22 to serve as its new carrier onboard delivery (COD) platform because the legacy C-2 Greyhound cannot carry a large F-35C engine; the Osprey could carry the engine out to an aircraft carrier and would also have the added flexibility of being able to bring people and supplies directly to the other ships in the strike group, which can support the V-22 landing on their helicopter decks. USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) will make the first deployment with the F-35C in 2021, so the CMV-22 needs to be ready too for that deployment. Looking a few years out, the Navy is making good progress on its MQ-25A Stingray unmanned carrier-based refueling tanker. In April the Navy exercised a contract option to buy three more aircraft from Boeing, and in December the Stingray made its first flight with the refueling system attached under its wings.

Unmanned Systems

Medium Displacement Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MDUSV) prototype Sea Hunter pulls into Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii on Oct. 31, 2018. US Navy Photo

In other unmanned news, the Navy set off down a path to design and build medium and large unmanned surface vessels of its own, after earlier work had been done with Pentagon-purchased USVs. L3 Technologies in July won a $35-million contract to develop a prototype Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MUSV), with options for eight follow-on craft that could bring the contract to a value of $281 million. In September, the Navy awarded six companies contracts to begin determining what the service’s Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle will look like. Austal USA, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Fincantieri Marinette, Bollinger Shipyards, Lockheed Martin and Gibbs & Cox each won about $7 million for LUSV design studies. Using Pentagon-built prototypes, the Navy operated the Sea Hunter medium USV with a carrier strike group this year, and an Overlord large USV conducted the first-ever autonomous transit of the Panama Canal as it sailed from the Gulf of Mexico to Southern California. In the undersea domain, just this week the Navy released its final request for proposals for the Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (LDUUV) program, with the intention to select a single vendor next year to begin designing and building two prototypes.

Plans and Budgets

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) and USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and their carrier strike groups (CSGs) steam in formation on July 6, 2020. US Navy Photo

Though many of these moves in 2020 will be instrumental in creating the fleet the Navy and Marine Corps know they need to deter China or win a fight if needed – especially the unmanned vessels, the light amphib and the frigate – the exact future shipbuilding plans for the Navy are still unclear. After the Navy and Marine Corps wrapped up an Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment in January, Esper did not agree it was the right plan. He ultimately kicked off a Pentagon-led Future Naval Force Study that worked from February to October to look at what the sea services needed to do to be prepared to beat China in a fight in the 2045 timeframe. This effort led to a Battle Force 2045 plan that had all the same themes as the Navy’s original INFSA earlier in the year. The Pentagon couched the differences as a matter of timelines and how aggressively to begin making changes: The Navy had been focused on a 2030 timeframe and what needed to happen quickly to overhaul the fleet in the next decade to support DMO, LOCE and EABO. The Pentagon instead took a longer view meant to incorporate what kind of threat China could ultimately become in the long run and therefore what the Navy and Marines would need to do to counter it – with the expectation that transformation would start now with that 2045 threat in mind. The plan will need buy-in from lawmakers, who have been largely unimpressed with the plans presented to them this year. The original FY 2021 budget request was called “dead on arrival” after it contained the smallest shipbuilding budget in years. The Battle Force 2045 and its accompanying long-range shipbuilding plan was panned for the opposite reason, for being out of touch with budget realities and calling for too quick a naval buildup.