The Navy’s budget proposal for fiscal 2015 calls for spending $30.7 billion for ships, aircraft and weapons, about $4 billion less than the 2014 request with the largest reduction hitting aviation, according to Navy officials and documents released as the Pentagon unveiled its funding request on Tuesday.
The documents outline spending $14.4 billion on shipbuilding compared to $15.2 in fiscal 2014, $3.2 billion on weapons compared to $3 billion this year, and $13.07 billion on aircraft, a decline of more than $3 billion from $16.4 billion sought in 2014.
The Navy’s request cuts the number of planned buys of Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] carrier variant F-35C Joint Strike Fighter from six to two, and halves the quantity of Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft from 16 to eight to save money, Rear Adm. William Lescher, the Navy’s top budget officer, told reporters. The Navy is seeking $2 billion for the P-8s.
Over the course of the five-year defense plan, the Navy’s planned purchases of the F-35C dropped by more than a dozen from the 53 outlined last year, while the numbers for the Marine Corps variant, the F-35B, are consistent with the ramp up to 69 over the five-year period released last year.
The five-year plan now calls for building 56 P-8s, 16 fewer than were in last year’s five-year plan. The Navy’s program of record for the Poseidons is 117. Additional reductions compared to last year include pushing back production of the Northrop Grumman [NOC] MQ-4 Triton unmanned aerial vehicle in 2016, removing the three that had been previously planned for fiscal 2015 because of developmental delays, Lescher said.
The planned buys of Northrop Grumman’s E-2D Advanced Hawkeye command and control aircraft were also slight scaled back, with seven fewer slated from 2015-2018.
Also cut from the five-year plan was Northrop Grumman’s MQ-8C variant of the Fire Scout unmanned helicopter. Last year the Navy said it planned to buy 17 MQ-8Cs from fiscals 2015-2018, but all of those were removed from this year’s proposal. Fourteen are under earlier contracts and the plan of record is for 30 of the helicopters largely intended to operate off the Littoral Combat Ship.
However, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last week he ordered the Navy to reduce the planned production of the ships from 52 to 32. The Navy’s budget document also said Pentagon had discontinued planned support of special operation forces requirements for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance with the Fire Scout.
Less money for aircraft also reflects the Navy’s plan to stop purchases of the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and E/A-18G Growler airframe. Last year, the Navy sought 21 Growlers for a pricetag of $2 billion. The five-year plan request also delays production of the CH-53K helicopter for the Marine Corps to one year to 2017, and eliminated 29 MH-60R Romeo helicopters in fiscal 2016–a move that may also reflect the scaling back of the LCS program.
The Navy is reducing the LCS buy in fiscal 2015 and 2016 from four to three to reflect the changes. The service is proposing for buy 10 each of the Virginia-class (SSN-774) attack submarines and Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyers, in line with previous plans on multi-year contracts with shipbuilders General Dynamics [GD] Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII].