The Navy has adopted a different strategy to cope with sequestration if it returns, one aiming to curtail the number of ships that would be cut from the fleet but would likely take a greater toll on upgrading and adding new capabilities to existing vessels, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said Wednesday.

During testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Greenert said that rather than retire ships as called for in previous plans, the Navy would instead scale back modernization spending to prevent sequestration from impacting fleet size.

Photo: U.S. Navy
Photo: U.S. Navy

Today the Navy has 287 ships and plans to grow to 300 by the end of this decade.

In 2013, Greenert told Congress that sequestration would likely force the Navy to cut its fleet to about 255 ships. But when asked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) Wednesday whether that would still be the case if sequestration returned on Oct. 1–the beginning of fiscal 2016–Greenert said it would not be as severe because the service would pursue savings elsewhere.

“That was about 15 months ago when I did that testimony. That was a scenario based on using force structure retirement to garner savings,” Greenert said. While the Navy would still likely have to give up some ships under another round of sequestration, it will not be as dire as dropping to the 255-ship level. “There will be some losses,” he said, adding that there was not a new figure.

Greenert said one factor in the Navy’s thinking now is that previous attempts to decommission ships earlier than planned were rebuffed by Congress, or “taken off the table.” He said a new approach would involve taking money from ship modernization instead, a move he acknowledged would raise concerns about future capability.

“That is more likely where we would go,” he said.

Speaking to a couple of reporters after the hearing, Greenert said there were other reasons that dropping to 255 ships would be averted.

Since his 2013 testimony, Congress has taken steps to partially avoid sequestration, allowing the Navy to fully fund shipbuilding plans in 2014 and 2015, he said. In those two years, spending laws passed by lawmakers rescued the Navy from a combined $13 billion in automatic cuts.

Plus, it’s become clear that Congress will resist the Navy’s attempts to reduce ship numbers, Greenert said. Even when sequestration is not in effect, getting Congress to sign off on early retirement of vessels has not been successful and a new tactic is necessary, Greenert said.

“We’ve been to the Hill a few times on approaches not even in sequestration, and it’s not received well,” he said after the hearing. “We are looking at other scenarios.”

To cope with the impact of reduced budgets, the Navy in previous years proposed early retirement for 11 Ticonderoga-class (CG-47) cruisers, but Congress refused to go along. For the fiscal 2015 budget the Navy tried a different approach, requesting approval to take the ships out of service for long term modernization and eventually return them to operations. A skeptical Congress approved the plan, but placed limits on the number of ships that could be taken out of service and the duration.

Greenert did not say whether the cruiser modernization plan would be impacted by a full return of sequestration.