By Geoff Fein
The Navy must do a better job of total ownership cost of platforms it buys and, in particular, keeping a close eye on the availability of fuel, according to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
The Navy is quick to point out when it gets a good price on a ship, but has not been looking at total ownership cost, CNO Adm. Gary Roughead said during a national security lecture at Ogilvy Public Relations’ Washington, D.C., headquarters, yesterday.
“The challenges we have as a Navy, right now we are a Navy of 283 ships. If you look at the Navy that will exist in 2020, 215 of those current 283 ships will be around in 2020. So it’s not as if you can say, ‘okay, we are going to get energy efficient.’ All the old stuff is going to be around,” he said.
What the Navy has done in the past year has been to take an approach that looks at the old and the new platforms, Roughead said. “What can we be doing to bring energy cost down on the old stuff? And then as we look to the future…[as] we make procurement decisions…not on how much the item costs but rather what the cost to own will be over time [will be]. We have to do that.”
And it’s not just on aircraft, ships, and submarines, he added. “It also has to be on the fairly large shore infrastructure that we have in the Navy…our bases…our communities where people live. The same applies there.
“For me, running the Navy, energy is a huge bill…so we have to bring that down,” Roughead said.
He pointed out the Navy has accomplished much in energy conservation that the service should be proud of. For example, the Navy operates one of the largest solar generation facilities in the United States.
“We are heavily involved with geothermal work…[we are] doing work in tidal energy…we have stood up a task force…[it’s] not a faddish initiative,” he said. “This is very serious because as I said, when you look to our future how much will it cost to run and operate, and how dependent are we on hydrocarbons, we have to get serious about it…now is the time.”
In response to a question about the Navy’s future role in providing deterrence, Roughead pointed out the new administration has committed research and development funds for the follow-on to the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines in the fiscal year ’10 budget.
He added there are some questioning the need to begin pursuing a new ballistic missile submarine at this point in time.
“If you look at the developmental time line for the Ohio-class and where we are starting with the replacement, we are just about in the same ballpark,” Roughead said. “And we are working with the U.K. because they also need to replace their strategic deterrent. The ability to get started on developing that new class of ballistic missile submarines is extremely important.”
Roughead also said he is encouraged by what he is seeing from the two industry teams building the next iterations of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).
“Getting cost down is something industry will work on and we will work on…to ensure we do not add anything more to that ship that causes change to occur [or add to cost],” he told the audience.
And Roughead maintains that based upon the demands and needs he is seeing from his combatant commanders, 313 is still a valid number for the future fleet.
“It doesn’t mean it won’t be a challenging process to get there,” he said. “I believe LCS is key…and the fact we have reverted to a more predictable cost ship in DDG-51 will help us increase numbers slightly there…[and] give us capability.”