News Story: OMB ‘Supports’ Extra LCS, But Where’s The Money?

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

UPDATE: Source Says WH Will Fund LCS Add; CRS Naval Expert Comments 

CAPITOL HILL: In a startling turnabout, the Trump Administration now “supports” adding a $541 million Littoral Combat Ship to yesterday’s 2018 budget request, Navy officials told Congress this afternoon. What, exactly, does that mean? The Navy doesn’t know.

Minutes before Navy witnesses were to testify before the House seapower subcommittee, they were given new language from the White House Office of Management & Budget: “The Administration recognizes the criticality of our industrial base and supports funding a second LCS in FY18.” OMB gave them no information, however, about whether “supports” is a promise of new money or just a vague sentiment that Congress should feel free to increase the Navy budget.

UPDATE BEGINS: The money will come, promised a source familiar with the administration’s discussions. “The administration’s going to support two (Littoral Combat) ships in the budget in FY18, and we’re figuring out the mechanism to do that,” the source assured me. “There will be a document of some sort, some sort of statement indicating that the administration is going to include in its budget request two LCS in ’18.” The administration will also probably urge the Hill to add a third LCS, leaving it up to Congress to find the funding for that ship.

Where’s the money coming from for the second LCS, the one the administration isfunding? “That is a question for which I do not have an answer,” the source admitted. “OMB and DoD are going to have to sort that out. All I can say is, it will be there.”

Land of Confusion

This was a pretty confusing way to get something in the budget, I said.

“Yeah. I don’t disagree,” said the source, chagrinned. “I wish that it had been done differently the whole way, (but) LCS is a controversial ship, and there are plenty of people who have concerns about it. (At DoD), I think they viewed LCS as a bill payer for other priorities.”

Ultimately, “the senior people in the administration said, we’re going to make the industrial base for our navy…a priority,” the source said, but by that point, “it was too late to put it in the physical budget document that were printed…The decision to include came rather late in the process and communicating that to the Navy and DoD writ large was a little delayed.” UPDATE ENDS

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News Story: SASC Will ‘Help’ Trump On Navy’s 355-Ship Fleet - Sen. Wicker

Image: Flickr User - Greg Bishop

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

CAPITOL HILL: Presidents propose; Congress disposes. President Trump’s shipbuilding budget for 2018 is a placeholder that legislators can increase, the chairman of the Senate seapower subcommittee told me this morning.

After Sen. Roger Wicker chaired a hearing with shipbuilding executives, following a classified hearing with Navy leaders, I asked him about Trump’s budget. Despite Trump’s campaign pledge for a 350-ship fleet, his budget adds no ships to the Obama plan for FY18 and actually cuts the shipbuilding account. Is this a disappointment, a placeholder, or — given that it takes time for the shipyards to ramp up — a reasonable delay?

“Option B,” Wicker told me with a slight smile. “It’s a placeholder.

“We’re going to work with the administration,” Wicker said. “We’re going to try to help the president get to his goal of more than 350 ships.”

“We take the leadership of the Navy’s recommendations seriously, as a matter of national security,” Wicker continued. The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, released a new Force Structure Assessment last fall calling for a 355-ship fleet.

“The president has endorsed that concept in broad terms,” Wicker said, “and we aim to work with him to make the budget” — a thoughtful pause — “consistent.”

In other (less politic) words, if Trump won’t put his money where his mouth is, Congress can do it for him.

“I’m going to take it one year at a time,” Wicker told me. “I think what we heard today is an eminently doable lift for this year, this next fiscal year (2018).”

So what did Wicker hear?

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News Story: Trump Budget Reduces Funds for Naval Shipbuilding

Image: Flickr User - Greg Bishop

On Tuesday, the Trump administration released its proposed budget for FY2018, including $639 billion in defense spending. The Navy would receive $171.5 billion of this amount, $6.5 billion more than in 2017. 

As expected, the budget would fully fund all planned ship depot maintenance, long under-resourced due to sequestration. This would would help clear a severe backlog of deferred maintenance on the attack submarine fleet, and would give the Navy ten more vessel maintenance availabilities than in the prior year. It also funds the continuation of a controversial refit for the Navy's aging Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers, the so-called "2/4/6" plan. In addition, the budget would fund aviation maintenance depots to their maximum current capacity. In a statement, the Navy said that these investments reflect the "importance of restoring wholeness in order to build capacity and improve lethality in the future."

Navy leaders have warned for years that underinvestment in maintenance is reducing readiness. In January, vice chief of naval operations Adm. Bill Moran cautioned that extended deployments and cost-cutting were a risky combination. “This long war we’re in and emerging or re-emerging threats have raised the stakes and kept us on the field longer than our bullpen is able to stay healthy . . . Deferred maintenance is insidiously taking its toll on the long-term readiness of our fleet.” 

However, the proposed budget would not provide as much for naval shipbuilding as some had hoped. A shipbuilding procurement budget of $20 billion would go towards one Ford-class carrier, two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, two Virginia-class subs and only one Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). This list mirrors the Obama administration's plan, and it reduces funding for shipbuilding by about $1 billion compared with the enacted budget for FY2017.

Read the full story at MarEx

News Story: (USA) Key SASC, SAC-D Senators Push More LCS

Austral Independence class LCS

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

WASHINGTON: Eight Senators sent a letter Friday to Defense Secretary James Mattis, urging him to request all three Littoral Combat Ships originally planned for the 2018 budget. While eight percent of the Senate may seem small, the bipartisan co-signers — four Republicans, four Democrats — include five members of the authorizing and appropriating committees for defense. Most notable among them is senior Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, who also chairs the Senate rules committee.

Smaller and more fragile than traditional destroyers, the Littoral Combat Ship has been controversial since its inception, and it frequently takes a shellacking in congressional hearings. But it’s long had strong support in Alabama, where Austral builds the triple-hulled Independence variant, as well as in Wisconsin, where Marinette Marine makes the single-hulled Freedom. Now the program is at a turning point, with the Navy itself acknowledging it needs an upgunned ship and setting up a competition between Austal and Marinette to build what it calls a frigate, essentially a better-armed but less versatile LCS. Congress’s investigative arm, the GAO, argues the program isn’t ready for the transition to frigates, while some prominent outside observers argue the LCS should be cancelled altogether in favor of an all-new ship.

Marinette Marine Freedom class LCS

In this moment of uncertainty, LCS backers want to make sure it preserves its share of the budget. That means three of the small vessels in 2018 — potentially with subsequent contract modifications to make them frigates instead of vanilla LCS.

Read the full story at BreakingDefense

News Story: LCS Frigate Block Buy Battle - Should Navy Buy Upgraded Ships Wholesale?

Marinette Marine - Freedom class LCS

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

WASHINGTON: Should the Navy buy the next generation of Littoral Combat Ships in bulk? A contentious hearing today before House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight largely framed the options as polar opposites. You can either sign a multi-ship deal to drive down the price, at the risk of getting “locked in” to buying a flawed design. (This is how LCS is currently bought). Or you buy ships one year at a time to preserve congressional freedom to change the program, at the price of paying more per ship. But the quiet voice of Capitol Hill’s leading naval expert, Ron O’Rourke, suggested the year-at-a-time approach could have costly unintended consequences.

In today’s hearing, no one disputed that the Navy’s contention that buying 12 upgraded LCS “frigates” in a single multi-year contract would save money — one estimate was roughly 5 percent — over negotiating with builders one ship at a time. But 12 ships at 5 percent off is still more expensive than buying zero ships.

A lot of LCS critics would rather rid themselves of the small, low-firepower, breakdown-prone vessels altogether. But cancellation is unlikely, because the Navy wants large numbers of the relatively affordable LCS to sweep mines, hunt subs, and patrol the seas, freeing up heavier destroyers for missile defense and other high-intensity missions. So the critics at least want to have the option every year to hold the threat of cancellation over the contractors’ heads to force better performance.

Austal - Independence class LCS

“Maybe LCS should stand for ‘Leaking, Cracked Ship,'” snarked Rep. Jackie Speier both on her Twitter account — using the hashtag #PorkShip — and in person at the hearing. “I and my @HASCDemocrats colleagues want to know why Congress should waste $120 billion on the Edsel of the sea.”

Speier frequently turned her ire on the Navy’s chief shipbuilder, Deputy Assistant Secretary Sean Stackley. “Mr. Stackley, I am so disappointed in your testimony, I can’t begin to tell you,” was the first thing she said to him in the hearing, saying his statement that the contractors properly warrantied their work on LCS “was very deceptive.”

Later in the hearing, Speier accused Stackley of not just deception but disrespect for the law: “My understanding is that, Sec. Stackley, you’ve already put out an RFP that presupposes a block buy, even though you don’t have authorization yet from Congress.”

“What we have put out an RFP for is the 2017 ships (only), with an option for a block buy,” Stackley replied, his frustration clearly simmering throughout the hearing. “We will be coming back to the Congress with the 2018 budget for authorization for the block buy.” That gives enough time to do the design work for the frigate upgrade, he told a skeptical Speier.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense