Information Dissemination - Dusk Approaches For the Big Deck Nuclear Carrier Age

[HG S2 (Intel Bot)]

Presented for comment. Confirmed by multiple sources, this is the very latest from OMB to the DoD regarding aircraft carriers and FY13:

The navy has proposed an additional 2-year schedule slip to its newest carrier, CVN79, which would extend the funding profile from the original 8 yrs to 12 yrs. The Navy would initiate the 4-yr construction process in FY15 after 8 years of advance procurement activities. Given the challenges of implementing the BCA caps, OMB allows the additional 2 year slip to CVN-79. However, the Navy should request authorization to commence regular CVN-79 construction in FY13 and continuing through FY18. The CVN-79 funding profile does not change, and because construction belongs in FY-13, there is no need for additional advance construction. The navy should work with OMB to develop a legislative proposal to implement this guidance. For the subsequent carrier, CVN-80, the Navy should include no more than 8 years total funding.

This is what Matt Mulherin, President of Newport News Shipbuilding, told a group of folks like me on the phone a few weeks ago:

I think everybody gets it; that if we don’t build it on a five-year center proves to be the most efficient timeline, so as soon as you’re finished being a structural guy on Ford you walk over and be a structural guy on Kennedy. I think everybody gets that, so they understand that the cost is an adder. I think what we've got to think about – and that’s why we’re focused on – is, “How do we drive cost out?†because you don’t want to be the used-car salesman that says, “You've got to buy it today because tomorrow it’s going to be more expensive.†I think everybody gets that. I think the value proposition of this whole thing is, “Let’s work with the Navy and figure how we take cost out of it,†so they want to buy.

Nope, I don't think everybody gets that it, or at least the accountants at OMB don't get it.

 

This schedule change almost insures the cost of CVN-79 is going to be enormous due to loss of trade skill at the yard, which means CVN-80 is also going to be a whole lot more expensive. By 2020 aircraft carriers are going to have such an enormous cost that there is no way the nation will build CVNs after CVN-80.

 

I see only two ways this doesn't happen. Either Obama loses in 2012 and the new President addresses this issue directly, immediately following election, or in some future 2016-2020 time frame the nation funds and builds 2 carriers of the Ford Class just like Reagan built 2 with the Nimitz class as a way of getting long term costs for the CVN as a strategic entity under control.

 

Otherwise, there will be 3 Ford class carriers, and by around 2025 the nation will have decided that based on cost alone a new way to project airpower from the sea will be necessary in the future. If you don't believe this move will end the big deck aircraft carrier, then you are in denial how the industrial reality will be seen in a political context once the costs go up.

 

For the record, opponents of big deck nuclear aircraft carriers will welcome this news, as they argue for purely military and strategic reasons that CVNs are too difficult to protect in future naval warfare to justify their price anyway. They are not fools. They know this kills construction of the big deck after 2025, hell everyone except those who talk out of their ass in politics knows this change will effectively end the age of big deck aircraft carriers as we know it today.

 

What do I think? Honestly, my first thought was that this almost insures Virginia goes red in the 2012 election unless people who live in Virginia hate jobs for people in their state and actually want that large area around Norfolk to be a ghost town, so it's hard to see this as the end of the road - rather the beginning of something different altogether.

 

But I also honestly believe the Aircraft Carrier Admiral of the US Navy today has a better than 50/50 shot of being the Battleship Admiral of 1941, and those Aircraft Carrier Admirals will be the very last people under any circumstances to admit that the age of the big deck nuclear powered aircraft carrier has been approaching dusk for some time now anyway.

 

My argument is this: at $10 billion a pop, and now likely in the $15 billion average range for CVN-79 and CVN-80 under this new schedule that will almost certainly cost the US taxpayer way more money than it would ever save - can the Navy do more and better for the same money? ~$30 billion for 2 aircraft carriers that has no aircraft or escorts and drives requirements for both aircraft and escorts in the rest of the US Navy budget is an investment that goes well beyond ~$30 billion, and for just $30 billion I am pretty sure Newport News could build 8 SSGNs at $4 billion a piece average based on the SSBN(X) design because of cost savings that would come from increasing the quantity of submarines purchased during the 2020s decade.

 

In my world of strategic and political theory, I'd take those SSGNs with that money anyway while admitting under many circumstances not named China that I'm probably getting the raw deal. This is a bigger deal than the politics and economics and budgets will ever reflect in conversation. What is the true value of 50 years of projecting airpower from sea? A big deck nuclear powered aircraft carrier today is a strategic investment that the US really can't afford get wrong. Making the wrong choice would be a strategic and political blunder of incalculable magnitude; one history would record as our nation casually tossing aside the aircraft carriers strategic advantages without a clear understanding of the consequences, but doing so knowing full well that once you lose the big deck production line - there is no going back.

 

I'd be really curious to see how the CBO scores this, because I was told by very serious folks when this rumor started earlier this year that the nation would not save any money long term by doing this move, and wouldn't be saving more than $1-2 billion in a single fiscal year at a time the Obama budgets are in the trillions. If the CBO found that to be true, this would be incredibly EPIC fail by economic and political standards for the Obama administration.

 

Very ironic this news is breaking on the day remembered for Pearl Harbor. Maybe that's karma trying to tell the Aircraft Carrier Admirals something they don't want to hear...

 

View the full article

[CV32]

From AOL Defense

 

[excerpt]

 

OMB OKs Carrier In 2013 Budget; Many Questions Remain

By Carlo Munoz

Published: December 8, 2011

 

WASHINGTON: Despite reports of its possible demise, the Navy's new aircraft carrier has been spared the budget ax. Now Pentagon and service officials have to figure out how they will pay for it.