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| Image: Flickr User - Greg Bishop |
Christopher P. Cavas
WASHINGTON — How many submarines does the US Navy need? How many surface warships? How many aircraft carriers? Should they be big, small, medium? What should they do? Do we need different kinds of ships or aircraft? What sorts of formations should they deploy with — or fight with?
First up is the Alternative Carrier study, being undertaken at the request of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Committee chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a vociferous critic of the cost of large carriers like the new Gerald R. Ford, wants the Navy to consider a number of alternative designs, from 40,000-ton ships to flattops much larger than the Ford’s roughly 100,000 tons. Research group Rand Corp. is conducting the study at the Navy’s direction.Those are some of the issues and questions being pondered this spring and summer as the US Navy works through several interlinked efforts to reach a new understanding of where it’s headed over the next several decades.
Then comes the Fleet Architecture study — an effort being carried out by three groups to look at alternatives for how the fleet is put together.
“The Fleet Architecture study may have more what-ifs, like if you went to a different amphibious ready group model or surface action group, you could do this differently,” explained a Navy official familiar with the studies. The work, the official added, should be “intellectually free to explore different things.”
Ultimately, the Alternative Carrier and Fleet Architecture studies will roll into the Force Structure Assessment (FSA), a periodic effort run by the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations’ (CNO) assessment division, N81. The last full FSA was conducted in 2012 and updated in 2014, resulting in, among other things, the goal of a 308-ship Navy. The current effort was begun over a year ago and should be concluded by late summer or early fall, in time to inform the fiscal 2018 budget and the next 30-year shipbuilding plan.
Read the full story at DefenseNews