The Navy is beginning to monitor its Los Angeles-class (SSN-688) attack submarines to determine if any can remain in the fleet past their expected service lives, as the SSN fleet was already set to dip below its minimum force of 48 boats and sequestration cuts only worsen the shortfall.
The Los Angeles-class subs are set for retirement this decade, with one in fiscal year 2014 and more in subsequent years at an increasing rate. Beginning in 2025, the SSN fleet will drop below 48 for more than a decade, hitting only 42 boats in 2030, Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, the Navy’s director of undersea warfare, testified Sept. 12 to the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee.
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| USS Minnesota (SSN-783) during sea trials in June 2013. Photo courtesy Huntington Ingalls Industries. |
“We are carefully monitoring each hull, how much life is in their core, what are their other systems’ health looking like, to see if we can maybe get a year or two extension on the Los Angeles class,” he told the subcommittee.
In written testimony to the subcommittee, he noted, “SSN fuel and material condition are being carefully managed to maximize the chance that some life extensions will be possible. If current trends continue it may be possible to fill about one-third of the ship-years of SSN shortfall.”
Breckenridge said during the hearing that he doesn’t like to view these measures as part of his official plan to keep the Navy’s submarine fleet on track–preventing the SSN shortfall from worsening is second on the list–because an uptick in requests by combatant commanders would eat up any margin the Navy can create for itself.
But he conceded that these measures are necessary, especially because the main goal of continuing to build out the Virginia-class (SSN-774) fleet at two subs a year may be at risk.
Rear Adm. David Johnson, program executive officer for submarines, said during the same subcommittee hearing that sequestration has already hurt the program by reducing funding in FY ’13 by $492 million, which cut into both the FY ’13 ship and advance procurement funding for FY ’14 and ’15 subs. Sequestration in FY ’14 at the anticipated level of 14 percent would take out $750 million, he said.
“It will be more challenging to sign off on a 10-ship multiyear when, in fact, the budget doesn’t reflect full funding for all 10 ships,” Johnson told the subcommittee.
The budget situation has not been any kinder to the top submarine priority: sustaining today’s ballistic submarine fleet. The Ohio-class replacement program, SSBN(X), has already been pushed two years to the right and now will ramp up research and development in FY ’14 to support lead ship construction in FY ’21 and fleet introduction in FY ’31, Breckenridge and Johnson testified.
With Congress looking to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government at the beginning of FY ’14 instead of a full budget bill, all programs would be funded temporarily at their FY ’13 levels, “which is about half of what the budget request is for FY ‘14,” Johnson said.
He added that the Navy had some flexibility to reapportion its research and development funds to try to keep the program on track, but he noted that there was no flexibility in the timing of the SSBN(X) program. A delay in introducing the lead ship means an immediate gap in global presence.
The Navy and Congress are still no closer to determining how to pay for the 12 Ohio-class replacement subs, which will cost $60 billion over 15 years. The Navy favors creating a supplemental budget for the ship class, which would be outside of the Navy shipbuilding budget–potentially in the Missile Defense Agency budget or elsewhere in the Defense Department budget–but there is still no formal support or plans for doing so.
Breckenridge told reporters after the hearing that if he got no money outside the Navy’s annual shipbuilding budget, he could hypothetically have to cut 32 other ships from the shipbuilding plan to accommodate the submarines.
He said during the hearing that pitting the general force ships against ballistic missile submarines is “an inappropriate friction.” But, he added later, the program “would trump all other vitally important requirements in our Navy. But if there’s only one thing we do with our shipbuilding account, we are committed to sustaining the two-ocean national strategic deterrent that protects our homeland from nuclear attack, from other major war aggression, and also acts as an extended deterrent for our allies.”