NOVEMBER 10, 2013 — In a ceremony held Saturday, Nov. 9, Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (NYSE: HII) Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division christened Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), the first ship of the
AUGUST 15, 2013 — Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII) reports that its Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division has installed the third and final aircraft elevator on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford
JUNE 17, 2013 — The final section of HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of two new aircraft carriers being built for the U.K. Royal Navy, has left BAE Systems’ shipyard at Scotstoun,
MAY 7, 2013 — Although the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is 96 percent structurally complete, launch at Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding has been pushed back from July to
JANUARY 25, 2013 — Rolls-Royce this week successfully completed the installation of the first MT30 gas turbine into the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, at Babcock’s Rosyth shipyard in
Even before it was formally submitted as the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2016, a draft of the Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan was floating around Washington and being seen by defense commentators as likely to have a short shelf life. The plan holds to the Navy’s goal of reaching a 308-ship battle force over the next five years. But an ongoing Force Structure Assessment (FSA) is under way that will likely see that number raised, the U.S. Naval Institute quotes naval analyst Bryan Clark of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments as saying. Clark, a former special assistant to past Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News that the plan is “very provisional until the Navy comes up with a new set of force structure requirements.” He added that Congress is “already weighing in with additional ships they want to build, and the new administration is going to obviously have things they want to do differently.”
The draft is an updated version of the plan submitted last year and continues to be based on the 2012 Force Structure Assessment (FSA) “to meet strategy and presence requirements and maintain a healthy industrial base.”
The problem with this is that the world has gotten a lot more dangerous since the 2012 FSA was compiled. Among other things, Vladimir Putin has invaded and annexed Crimea and subsequently pulled out various ploys from the Soviet era Cold War play book and China has been building whole new Spratley islands and sticking airstrips on them, essentially creating large (if stationary) aircraft carriers. Turn on the BBC World Service News any day and you’ll be able to add to the list.
The upshot is that the next FSA is likely to produce a need for a larger submarine fleet and more cruiser/destroyer-type vessels (CRUDES) than envisaged in the 2012 FSA.
Meantime, the draft shipbuilding plan says that since the 2012 FSA was completed there have been some minor adjustments in the Navy’s forward deployed posture, warfighting prioritization, and structure that have seen the 2012 FSA objective for 306 ships increased to 308 as a result of these changes. Here’s what they consist of: Fleet ballistic missile submarines: 12; Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers: 11; Nuclear-powered attack submarines: 48; Nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines* 0; Large, multi-mission, surface combatants: 88; Small, multi-role, surface combatants: 52; Amphibious Warfare ships: 34;Combat logistics force ships: 29; Support vessels: 34.
While all this is aimed at producing pretty much the fleet seen as needed in the 2012 FSA, it seems evident that the next FSA will actually result in a requirement for a larger battle force.
LAWMAKERS SEEK MORE SHIPS
The FY 2017 Defense Authorization Act is now churning through the Congressional hopper and legislators are intent on getting ahead of the curve.
But you don’t always get what you ask for—and when it comes to Navy shipbuilding and Congress sometimes it will be just a bit different, even when it’s more.
The House last month authorized $20.6 billion for shipbuilding, $2.3 billion above the President’s budget. As we’ll discuss later, how it wants to find the money is controversial and sets things up for resolution by a House-Senate conference and possibly even a veto.
Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Randy Forbes, (R-VA) says that between the shipbuilding account and the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund (set up in the FY 2015 act as a holding fund dedicated to the Ohio replacement ballistic missile submarine program), that $20.6 billion is the highest level of shipbuilding funding, accounting for inflation, since President Reagan was in office.
In addition to shifting the amount requested by the President for the Ohio replacement into the NSBDF, the House measure expands the authorities in the NSBDF to include “continuous production” of Ohio class replacement submarines, allowing the Navy to procure components such as missile tubes at substantially lower cost.
Additionally, the measure:
The House measure also includes an amendment by Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) that would prevent any funds from being used to “select only a single contractor for the construction of the Littoral Combat Ship or any successor frigate class ship program” until the Secretary of the Navy certifies a number of requirements to Congress—effectively delaying progress on the Navy’s down select from two LCS variants to one until the next administration takes office.
SENATE VERSION STILL IN WORKS
Right now, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the Act was coming up for consideration by the full Senate. As drafted, it contains a number of similarities to the House version, with one major difference being the future of the LCS.
Among other items on the committee’s list:
In provisions relating to the Ford-class Aircraft Carrier, the Senate Arms Service Committee version directs a review of the ships’ Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) program and meantime prohibits future AAG procurement funding, saying, the acquisition “unit cost of this troubled program has breached critical cost growth thresholds, warranting a reassessment of the program and a consideration of alternatives.”
It limits funds until the Navy establishes lower end cost targets of $11 billion and $12 billion for the USS John F. Kennedy
(CVN-79) and USS Enterprise (CVN-80), respectively.
There’s no good news for LCS fans in the Senate. Its bill prohibits revisions to or deviations from the current LCS acquisition strategy, which includes procurement of both LCS designs in 2017, a down-select to a single variant no later than 2019, and a reduction in the inventory objective to 40 ships.
It also reduces authorization for the LCS by $28 million “due to unjustified unit cost growth” and cuts $59 million for LCS mission packages.
What’s more, it prohibits the use of funds to enter into or prepare to enter into a sole-source contract for a Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) or Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF).
“In the last two years, funds were appropriated for two of these ships that Navy did not request and were not authorized by the NDAA,” says the committee. “This provision is a necessary safeguard to prevent wasteful earmarks.”
The Senate measure directs the Secretary of the Navy to report to Congress on how the Navy will transition the Ohio-class replacement submarine program from cost-plus to fixed-price contracts as soon as possible.
Picking up on a March 2016 GAO report that said the Navy should reconsider its approach to warranties for correcting construction defects, the Senate Armed Services Committee draft “directs the Secretary of the Navy to structure contract terms such that shipbuilders do not earn profit for correcting construction deficiencies following delivery that are determined to be their responsibility.”
The Senate version authorizes an extension to a Jones Act waiver pertaining to the procurement of dry docks, which would be necessary to build Navy ships.
The Senate Armed Services Committee measure also would slow the Navy’s efforts to take existing ships out of service. The measure would: 1. Prohibit funds from being used to inactivate guided missile cruisers or dock landing ships or place ships in these classes into an extended modernization period, unless prescribed criteria are met; and 2. Prohibit funds from being used to inactivate existing mine countermeasures systems until equivalent or better capabilities are fielded.
PAYING FOR IT ALL
While the levels of both House and Senate Armed Services Committees’ total defense budget proposals are line with the Administration’s total, the House version only does so with a bit of smoke and mirrors: it funds the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) only until April 20, saying “The Chairman’s expectation is that a new President will assess the national security landscape and submit a supplemental budget request—as is traditional in the first year of a new administration.”
Calling that move “budget gimmickry,” Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said, in a speech delivered May 17, that “it raids war funds in a time of war, when we have men and women deployed in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It also threatens the budget stability that undergirds all of the reforms, investments and initiatives that the Pentagon has been working on. And it threatens the readiness of the force—an actual contrast to the narrative its proponents propound.”
Secretary Carter noted that the passage of last fall’s Bipartisan Budget Act “gave us some much needed stability to plan and build for the future, after years of gridlock and turbulence.”
“That budget deal set the size of our budget,” he continued, “and with this degree of certainty, we focused on its shape and building the FY 2017 budget we’ve submitted and I’ve described—changing that shape in fundamental but carefully considered ways to adjust to a new strategic year end to seize opportunities for the future.
“But the budget stability that was supposed to last for two years is already under threat after only six months with a proposal to underfund DOD’s overseas warfighting accounts by $18 billion and spend that money on programmatic items we didn’t request. This approach is deeply troubling.
“If a final version of the NDAA reaches the President this year and includes a raid on war funding that risks stability and gambles with war funding, jeopardizes readiness and rejects key judgments in the department,” said Secretary Carter, “ I’ll be compelled to recommend that he veto the bill. I’m hopeful, however, that we can work with Congress to achieve a better solution. Our warfighters deserve nothing less because our mission is a deadly serious one.”
Notably, the buy of advanced Type 26 Global Combat Ships will be cut to eight ships from the previously announced 13.
The Type 36 ships are intended to replace the Royal Navy’s current Type 23 frigates in their anti-submarine role and the cuts to the program aren’t going down well in Scottish shipbuilding circles.
Overall, though, the plan adds to the number of ships in the fleet.
“We will maintain our fleet of 19 frigates and destroyers,” says the review. “We will also launch a concept study and then design and build a new class of lighter, flexible general purpose frigates so that by the 2030s we can further increase the total number of frigates and destroyers. These general purpose frigates are also likely to offer increased export potential. We will buy two further new offshore patrol vessels, increasing the Royal Navy’s ability to defend U.K. interests at home and abroad.”
The two new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy, that will enter service from 2018, will also get added punch with an increase the number of F35 Lightning aircraft being bought. And one of the two carriers will be enhanced to support the amphibious capabilities of Royal Marines 3 Commando Brigade.
Three new logistic ships will be built to support the fleet, in addition to four tankers that will enter service from 2016.
BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBS WILL COST MORE
Not too surprisingly, Britain’s 20 year plan to replace the Vanguard Class of nuclear-armed submarines with a new class of four submarines, currently known as Successor, is starting to look a lot more expensive, going up from a previously estimated ›£25 billion to £31 billion, with a further £10 billion being budgeted for contingency.”The revised cost and schedule reflect the greater understanding we now have about the detailed design of the submarines and their manufacture,” says the review.
Download the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defense and Security Review HERE
Here’s how the CBO see things.
CBO says it estimates that the cost of the Navy’s 2016 shipbuilding plan—an average of about $20 billion per year (adjusted for inflation) over 30 years—would be $4 billion higher than the funding that the Navy has received in recent decades.
The Department of Defense (DoD) submitted the Navy’s 2016 shipbuilding plan for fiscal years 2016 to 2045 in April 2015. The $20 billion total annual cost of carrying out the 2016 plan over the next 30 years, CBO estimates—would be one-third more than the amount the Navy has received in Congressional appropriations for shipbuilding in recent decades.
The Navy’s 2016 shipbuilding plan, says CBO, is similar to its 2015 plan with respect to the goal for the total number of battle force ships, the number and types of ships the Navy would purchase, and the funding proposed to implement its plans.
The Navy Plans to Expand the Fleet to 308 Battle Force Ships
The Navy’s 2016 shipbuilding plan states that the service’s goal (in military parlance, its requirement) is to have 308 battle force ships, consisting of aircraft carriers, submarines, surface combatants, amphibious ships, combat logistics ships, and some support ships. The 2016 shipbuilding plan falls short of the goals for some types of ships in some years, although generally the shortfalls are smaller than they have been in previous years’ plans. The fleet today numbers 273 ships.Under the 2016 plan, the Navy would buy a total of 264 ships over the 2016–2045 period: 218 combat ships and 46 combat logistics and support ships.
Given the rate at which the Navy plans to retire ships from the fleet, says CBO the 2016 plan would not meet the inventory goal of 308 ships until 2022, but it would allow the Navy to maintain its inventory at least at that level through 2031. After that, in most years through 2045, the fleet would fall below 308 ships.
The size of the Navy does not depend on ship construction alone; the length of time that particular ships remain in the fleet affects the force structure as well. The CBO notes that the Navy often shows flexibility in its approach to retiring ships: A ship may be retired before the end of its service life to save money or may be kept beyond that span to maintain a desired force level. Generally, the Navy’s estimates of expected service life align with historical experience.
However, the Navy currently assumes a 35- or 40-year service life for its large surface combatants; in the past, few of those ships were in the fleet for longer than 30 years.
CBO Estimates That Spending for New Ships in the Navy’s Plan Would Average $18.4 Billion per Year
The Navy estimates that buying the new ships specified in the 2016 plan would cost $494 billion (in 2015 dollars) over 30 years—or an average of $16.5 billion per year—slightly less than the costs of the 2015 plan. Using its own models and assumptions, CBO estimates that the cost of new-ship construction in the Navy’s 2016 plan would total $552 billion over 30 years, or an average of $18.4 billion per year.
CBO’s estimates are higher because the Navy and CBO use different estimating methods and assumptions regarding future ships’ design and capabilities and treat growth in the costs of labor and materials for building ships differently.
CBO’s constant-dollar estimate is 8 percent higher than the Navy’s for the first 10 years of the plan, 12 percent higher for the following decade, and 17 percent higher for the final 10 years (see figure).
The difference widens over time in part because the Navy’s method of developing constant-dollar estimates (which differs from CBO’s method) does not account for the faster growth in the costs of labor and materials in the shipbuilding industry than in the economy as a whole and thus does not reflect the anticipated increase in inflation-adjusted costs of future purchases of ships with today’s capabilities.
Average Annual Costs of New-Ship Construction Under the Navy’s 2016 Plan
The Navy’s shipbuilding plan reports only the costs of new-ship construction.Other activities typically funded from the Navy’s budget accounts for ship construction—such as refueling nuclear-powered aircraft carriers or outfitting new ships with various small pieces of equipment after the ships are built and delivered—would add $1.7 billion to the Navy’s average annual shipbuilding costs under the 2016 plan, by CBO’s estimate. (Between 2010 and 2015, the cost of those other activities averaged $2.1 billion per year.) Including those extra costs would increase the average annual cost of the Navy’s 2016 plan to $20.2 billion per year, CBO estimates.
CBO’s estimate of the total cost of the Navy’s plan is 10 percent above the Navy’s estimate.
The Navy’s Shipbuilding Plan for the Next 30 Years Would Cost Almost One-Third More Than It Has Spent Over the Past 30 Years
If the Navy received the same amount of funding (in constant dollars) for new-ship construction in each of the next 30 years that it has received, on average, over the past three decades, the service would not be able to afford its 2016 plan.
CBO’s estimate of the $18.4 billion per year for new-ship construction in the Navy’s 2016 shipbuilding plan is 32 percent above the historical average annual funding of $13.9 billion (in 2015 dollars). And CBO’s estimate of $20.2 billion per year for the full cost of the plan is 28 percent higher than the $15.8 billion the Navy has spent, on average, annually over the past 30 years for all items in its shipbuilding accounts. If funding were to continue at the average for the past 30 years, under one possible approach to ship construction, the Navy would be able to build about 70 fewer battle force ships than it currently plans, CBO estimates.
Download the CBO report HERE
“There’s no good way to do this,” the Virginian-Pilot reports Newport News Shipbuilding President Matt Mulherin as saying, adding that the swiftness of laid-off workers’ departures was largely related to the fact that the shipyard is a secure facility.”
Though the abruptness of the dismissals came as a shock, the layoffs themselves came as no great surprise.
Back in July, the shipbuilder warned workers that, as work on three major aircraft carrier projects winds down, layoffs lay ahead for both hourly paid and salaried employees. It projected that 500 jobs would go this year and another 1,500 plus in 2016.http://bit.ly/1KnifmT
In a “Dear Shibuilders” letter and accompanying FAQ, issued at that time, Mr. Mulherin said “remember that the workload valley has both a beginning and end as our workload increases again in 2017.
“”We will issue 60-day notices to all affected employees,” the workers were told. “Employees will be expected to work during the 60-day notice period.”
However, because the actual number of layoffs was kept below the 500 number, Newport News was not required to give advanced notifications and the workers separated from the company on the day they were laid off.
Seventy seven of those laid off who have the appropriate skills will have the opportunity to return to an hourly trade job.
When both tugs were on station and current conditions right, they were expected to slowly two the vessel — at 113,323 gt one of the world’s largest cruise ships — to Ensenada to disembark passengers.
The Carnival Splendor is presently located 150 miles south of San Diego and has 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew members aboard. They faced a second day without key hotel systems, including air conditioning, hot food service, and telephones, following an engine room fire that broke out yesterday morning. Last night, the ship’s engineers were able to restore toilet service to all cabins and public bathrooms, as well as cold running water. The ship’s crew continues to actively work to restore other services. though Carnival said last night that “the ship’s crew is actively working to restore partial services.”
No injuries to passengers or crew have been reported.
Units from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Mexican Navy have been deployed to the scene.
At the request of Coast Guard District 11 in San Diego, 3rd Fleet diverted the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan from its current training maneuvers to a position south of the cruise ship to facilitate the delivery of needed supplies, That involved transfering 35 pallets of supplies by Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 30 carrier on-board delivery aircraft to Ronald Reagan. Once aboard Ronald Reagan, the supplies were to be delivered by helicopter to Carnival Splendor.
The ship became disabled after a fire was detected in the aft engine room at approximately 6.a.m, (U.S. Pacific Standard Time) yesterday.
Carnival said that the ship has been operating on auxiliary generators , with engineers unable to restore additional power to the vessel.
Though passengers were initially asked to move from their cabins to the ship’s upper open deck areas, they later regained access to their cabins and were able to move about the ship. Bottled water and cold food items are being provided.
The current voyage has been terminated and Carnival says guests will be receiving a full refund along with reimbursement for transportation costs. Additionally, they will receive a complimentary future cruise equal to the amount paid for this voyage.
“We know this has been an extremely trying situation for our guests and we sincerely thank them for their patience. Conditions on board the ship are very challenging and we sincerely apologize for the discomfort and inconvenience our guests are currently enduring. The safety of our passengers and crew is our top priority and we are working to get our guests home as quickly as possible,” said Gerry Cahill, president and CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines.
Carnival Splendor was on the first leg of a seven-day Mexican Riviera cruise that departed yesterday, Nov. 7, from Long Beach, Calif.Yesterday was a scheduled day at sea. The ship’s normal itinerary includes stops in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
The Fincantieri-built ship first entered service in July 2008.
November 9, 2010
