Several Navy experts testified at a seapower panel Tuesday on the factors in reaching a 355-ship Navy, including the tradeoffs in reactivating the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates (FFG-7) and extending the lives of current ships.
Ronald O’Rourke, specialist in naval affairs at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) noted the technical feasibility and potential cost effectiveness of reactivating the Perry frigates is not yet clear. “It may be possible to do something creative with the FFG- 7 class ships. Exploring options for reactivating recently retired ships can be viewed, at a minimum, as a matter of due diligence,” he said in his prepared remarks to the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower.
An expert at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) commented that the administration of President Ronald Reagan famously activated four Iowa-class battleships from the ready reserve or “ghost fleet” and similar moves today are an option for rapid growth in the Navy.
Dr. Jerry Hendrix, senior fellow and director of the defense strategies and assessments program at CNAS said there are ten “retention” assets in the reserve fleet which includes a conventionally powered aircraft carrier, three light amphibious carriers, and five amphibious platform docks. He noted there are also 11 Perry-class frigates designated for foreign military sales (FMS) where partner countries will then refurbish them to get an additional 10-20 years of service life.
When Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) asked what missions those frigates might be used for Hendrix responded they could relieve newer and higher capability ships by conducting offshore sea patrols and convoy duties in places like the Mediterranean Sea and Gulf of Guinea.
O’Rourke pointed out that in recent years the Navy has largely stopped helping interdict illegal drugs coming from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. He said it is significantly more expensive to interdict drugs on land vs. on sea so this is one kind of mission the Perry frigates could operate.
He added that the Coast Guard noted when the Perry-class was retired and that they lost the capability to cooperate with the Navy on drug interdiction missions. They could renew that mission if brought back into serve and have a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment to help conduct some operations. O’Rourke also said this kind oif mission may, to some extent, be possible with reservists working on two week deployments since the operations are largely off the coast of California and in the Caribbean.
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), said since the Navy has walked away from this mission it has been handed of to the Coast Guard and allies so if Perry-class ships are brought back to, in part, do this mission it would not relieve current Navy ships. It is a national requirement but not a current Navy mission requirement, he said.
Clark highlighted the downsides of using the reserve fleet in his prepared statement. While the reserve exists as a quick and cheap way to expand the fleet “in practice, however, reactivating retired warships will take time, money, and manpower from the current fleet without providing significant warfighting capability. This may be an appropriate approach during a wartime mobilization, but is not appropriate in peacetime.”
Reactivating ships will require tens of millions of dollars in maintenance to make them operational and sea-worthy and more in combat system upgrades. Without adding new capabilities, reactivating ships like the first five Ticonderoga-class cruisers or the Perry-class will not have the self-defense capability to persist in the South or East China Seas at an acceptable risk during heightened tensions, he said
Clark cited a Yemen Houthi rebel attack on the USS Mason as an example that even areas outside the most contested regions are not entirely free of hazards.
Dr. Eric Labs, senior analyst for naval forces and weapons at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) noted he is curious to see what the Navy will report on as it examines reactivating the Perry-class ships. Three to four years ago the Navy said the material condition of their hulls was getting quite thin so it would need to be improved to bring life expectancy up enough to make reactivation worthwhile, he said.
“Even with more funding, reactivation will take years. Each ship would need to be inspected and work packages developed to bring them back to operating condition and upgrade them with appropriate defensive and offensive capabilities. The ships would then need to be worked into the schedules of civilian shipyards that maintain the rest of the surface fleet,” Clark said.
He suggested instead of reactivating old ships the Navy should keep some current ships I operation beyond the planned retirement dates. He said while the Navy is conducting a phased modernization of the oldest 11 guided missile cruisers (CGs) to keep them viable through the 2030s, it could take a similar approach to some of the 11 amphibious landing docks (LSD).
The LSDs are set to be replaced by the new L(X)R ships starting in the 2020s but the Navy could conduct a life-extension modernization on some of the LSDs for use in lower-end training, maritime security, and humanitarian assistance missions to address the small surface combatant gap, Clark said.
Hendrix suggested that five Ticonderoga-class cruisers or nine Mine Countermeasure ships scheduled for decommissioning could be kept in service for five to ten more years through a service life extension program. In this example it may cost up to $300 million per cruiser and $50 million per mine countermeasure ship.
“Such actions are not inexpensive, but they would be much cheaper than funding entirely new platforms and in the end could result in a battle force of 321 ships by the end of FY‐24,” he said in his statement.