Analysis: How plans that don’t add up hurt fleet

 

By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer

Posted : Tuesday May 27, 2008 11:18:34 EDT

 

When Navy officials tell Congress they have confidence in their shipbuilding cost projections, lawmakers don’t believe them.

 

When flag officers say they’ve got enough money for maintenance, fleet sailors wonder why high-tech warships aren’t combat-ready.

 

When top admirals say they have a new maritime strategy, analysts struggle to match it with the shipbuilding plan.

 

When business strategies override operational needs, officers wonder whether they are war fighters or executives.

 

Navy leaders are suffering from a credibility gap — with Congress, with industry and, increasingly, with the fleet.

 

In discussions with dozens of naval professionals over several months, few questioned the Navy’s commitment to fielding an effective fighting force. But on a wide range of issues, the ability of Navy leaders to manage programs and explain service direction is being questioned, doubted and, in some cases, challenged outright.

 

“They need to take a hard look at themselves,” one former senior officer said.

 

An element of denial is apparent in many service calculations, which typically are based on perfect-world scenarios to make everything come out right.

 

“They’re constantly using optimistic cost and schedule assumptions,” said Bob Work, a retired Marine Corps artillery colonel who is a top naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. “This continual optimism, the continually rosy assumptions, the effort to go too fast” have so eroded the service’s credibility in Congress, Work said, that House lawmakers have difficulty even listening to the Navy.

 

One congressional source said he can’t, at times, rule out deliberate deception.

 

“It’s more a feeling rather than specific things,” the source said. “An accumulation of a lot of little things which, in and of themselves, are perfectly explainable, but when you add them up, it doesn’t work.”

 

Disagreement abounds on where the primary problem lies, when it began and what the key symptoms are.

 

Some cite the new Maritime Strategy, kicked off in spring 2006 by then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen and viewed by some as an indication of a naval identity crisis.

 

Others point to unrealistic expectations for overly ambitious shipbuilding programs. This covers both the Littoral Combat Ship program, developed under Mullen’s predecessor, Adm. Vern Clark, and spurred on by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s transformation movement, and the decadelong effort to produce the advanced DDG 1000 destroyer. The Navy, which has had trouble defining that ship’s purpose, says each DDG 1000 will cost about $3.3 billion, but independent estimates peg the costs at $5 billion or more.

 

A growing number of professionals also sense a leadership vacuum, particularly at the service’s top levels. Some wonder whether Mullen’s advancement to the nation’s top military job — chairman of the Joint Chiefs — has kept his successor as CNO, Adm. Gary Roughead, from more assertively taking the service’s wheel.

 

There are reports of forceful behind-the-scenes discussions in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, the part of the Navy reporting directly to the CNO. But when Navy leaders speak in open forums, their support for programs and philosophies lacks conviction and a clear sense of purpose.

 

“They’re not even fighting hard for their own shipbuilding plan anymore,” a retired senior officer said.

 

Navy Secretary Donald Winter has led efforts to force shipbuilders to modernize and become more efficient, and the Hill has applauded the efforts. But Winter has made enemies among his supplier base. For the third straight year, he castigated shipbuilders at March’s Navy League Sea-Air-Space Symposium in Washington for failing to control costs and boost quality.

 

This time, industry’s groans were somewhat stifled when Northrop Grumman announced a month later that it would eat at least $320 million in charges to redo poor work on a Navy assault ship it is building.

 

Navy leaders resist the notion that there are leadership issues and insist steady hands are at the wheel. But they declined requests to comment for this article.

 

Littoral combat ships

Early last year, LCS acquisition turned from problematic to fiasco, as an ambitious plan for concurrent design and construction, a tight building schedule and a cost cap of $220 million crashed headlong into the rocks of reality. Navy officials admitted the price was going to be far higher — and that they had no real idea how high it would go.

 

Winter tried to force competitors Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics to switch from cost-plus contracts to fixed-price agreements for subsequent ships, shifting the financial risk to the contractors. But both companies declined, and the second ships were canceled for both. Costs for the initial LCS hulls are now forecast at around $500 million each, and the building schedule for subsequent ships, still planned to number 55, has been slowed.

 

But lost behind the acquisition debacle is the absence of cultural preparation to allow the fleet to help develop the LCS concept — something commanders, crews and shore establishments will need years to embrace.

 

The ship’s new features include heavy dependence on networked data, extensive use of modular weapons and sensors, an abundance of off-board vehicles requiring doctrinal development and unique maintenance, and extensive development on concepts of operations. Command structures will need to be perfected for how the core 40-man crews interact with mission-specific detachments of 15 sailors. No navy operates ships like these, and it will take years of development, testing and training to make the new concepts function smoothly.

 

“They’re not going to get full capability out of that puppy for 20 years,” said Robbin Laird, a Washington-based defense analyst.

 

Maintenance issues

Recently, more thinkers are worrying how the small crews will keep the 2,800-ton ships in fighting trim, given the maintenance problems now vexing far larger crews. The 30-year fleet plan depends on keeping today’s ships in service longer than originally envisioned. But recent material inspections of surface warships have revealed what some fear are fleetwide maintenance problems.

 

In March, the cruiser Chosin and the destroyer Stout, among the world’s most sophisticated ships and fitted with the Aegis combat system, were found by inspectors to be “unfit for sustained combat operations.”

 

The Navy tied their condition to recent deployments, but the 5-year-old Fleet Response Plan requires ships to remain deployable for some months after a cruise. Moreover, service leaders have long insisted that ships kept steaming after the end of a deployment would be in better condition than if they were laid up for rest and repairs.

 

But that’s not proven true. In a message to the fleet April 18, Navy Surface Forces chief Vice Adm. D.C. Curtis said “course corrections” might be necessary to fix maintenance shortcomings.

 

One problem some believe needs attention: The limited hands-on training sailors now get before arriving aboard ships. Sailors in many technical ratings are learning their trade with computer-based simulations.

 

“There is absolutely no substitute for a wrench in a young sailor’s hand,” thundered the former senior officer. “You can’t learn that on a computer. We are losing technical skills rapidly in the junior ranks.”

 

313-ship plan

Before moving on to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs, then-CNO Mullen succeeded in one of his top priorities: setting a definitive number of ships for the future fleet.

 

The 313-ship, 30-year fleet plan — which is revised each year — emerged in February 2006, designed to quiet critics who decried the practice of Clark and previous Navy Secretary Gordon England of advocating not a specific number but a range.

 

The Navy admitted the plan wasn’t perfect. Among other problems, in order to make the number of surface combat ships add up, the service had to extend the ships’ planned life spans. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, for example, are now slated to sail for 40 years rather than 35. Real-life experience, however, indicates that could be costlier and more difficult than this rosy projection allows. The 14-year-old Stout is considered by maintenance officers to be an old ship, yet it is barely one-third of the way through its 40-year career. The Chosin is 17 years old and needs to remain operational for 18 more years.

 

“The maintenance strategy is absolutely critical to being able to execute the 313-ship, 30-year fleet plan,” the congressional source said.

 

The service has little if any credibility in Congress when predicting the budget necessary to buy its future fleet. The Navy did not help its case by insisting for two years that the shipbuilding plan would cost an average of $15 billion a year, despite critics who said the real price would be at least $20 billion. This year, the service quietly revised its estimate to $20 billion per year.

 

“But they never discussed that in testimony, they never offered any explanation,” the congressional source declared. “That isn’t incompetence, that isn’t a mistake. That’s sort of a willful and deliberate omission. It’s not lying, but it’s leaving out an evident truth.”

 

Work said the Navy really wants many more ships — many officers still wistfully dream of the Reagan-era “600-ship Navy” — and the unaffordability of its plan creates a culture of unrealistic optimism.

 

“Roughead said 313 is a ‘floor’ number,” Work said. “The Navy wants a bigger fleet, but they’re stuck with a budget of no more than about 300 ships, and the Navy has had to be extremely creative in its plan, using optimistic assumptions, ships in the out-years that never come about. Unable to convince people they need the resources to build this fleet, they’re constantly using optimistic cost and schedule assumptions.”

 

The Maritime Strategy

The fleet plan was meant to furnish stability, a response to shipbuilders who complained they couldn’t plan if the Navy kept changing its mind each year about the number of ships it would build.

 

Ironically, the Navy completed work on its new Maritime Strategy some two years after it settled on the fleet size, reversing the logical order in which a strategy would dictate the tools needed to carry it out.

 

There were high hopes for the strategy when planning began in April 2006, but for the next 16 months, discussion was limited by a rigid adherence to how the strategy was being developed rather than the issues at hand, squelching open exchanges.

 

Finally unveiled last October, the completed strategy incorporated Mullen’s oft-stated visions of a 1,000-ship international cooperative effort, humanitarian missions and stationing of more U.S. ships in foreign lands. But it added little to the debate over the Navy’s roles and was criticized for avoiding discussion of what kind of fleet the Navy needs.

 

“It is not compelling, not tied to a force structure,” said a second retired senior officer, now in industry. “So what?”

 

Enterprise approach

Aviation is not immune to these and other related problems.

 

Navy leaders talk about a “fighter gap” beginning around 2016, but many listeners view this as a scare tactic rather than a realistic prediction. Critics argue the Navy just wants to adjust its plans and buy more aircraft, or that the claim reflects internal disputes over whether to buy more F/A-18E and F Super Hornets or the more expensive, but more modern, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

 

“The ‘gap’ is a bean-counter approach that is not putting you at the heart of strategic relevance,” Laird said. “The F/A-18 is yesterday’s aircraft.”

 

Another issue stretching the Navy’s credibility is the effort to reduce the number of helicopter models in the fleet to the MH-60S and R models. The approach makes business sense, but the absence of medium- and heavy-lift capabilities means that many missions must be split into more individual sorties — which will wear out aircraft and aircrews at a faster rate.

 

The Navy last year exacerbated the issue when it all but ignored congressional inquiries into the helicopter plan, annoying lawmakers who might be itching to order the service to purchase or develop heavy-lift helos.

 

The continued emphasis on applying business practices to fleet problems disturbs many naval professionals.

 

“We’re not a business organization. We’re war fighters,” the first former senior officer said. “We’re not here to waste money, but we’re not here to make a profit.”

 

Clark epitomized the MBA-admiral, the former officer said, with discussions of human capital management and other business-speak.

 

“All the flag officers have these titles that mirror a corporate board structure. I just want to throw up,” the former senior officer said. “Where’s the warrior culture? We’re not a board of directors, it’s the Navy. It should be about standards and accomplishing the mission.”

 

The second retired senior officer lamented today’s risk-averse naval culture, and bemoaned the lack of a strong Navy leader. That should be the CNO, he said.

 

“But what does he think? What does he believe? Usually there’s a champion, someone who picks people up from the malaise. Where’s the champion?”

 

Find Navy Times article here.

From DefenseNews

 

U.S. Navy's Ship Plans Don't Add Up

Fed-Up Lawmakers May Impose Their Own Vision

Part 2 of 2 By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

Published: 2 Jun 10:29 EDT (06:29 GMT)

 

Five times this winter, Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations (CNO), had the opportunity to tell Congress why the U.S. Navy wants another $3 billion DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer.

 

Five times congressional supporters grooved their questions to the CNO.

 

Five times the CNO had little to say.

 

"Would you explain where the DDG 1000 fits into the future of the surface Navy, and do you believe that this is the right ship?" asked Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, March 5.

 

"What the DDG 1000 brings to our Navy," Roughead replied, "is an introduction of new technologies that will be very important to how we go forward."

 

He didn't discuss how the ship fit into the Navy's maritime strategy nor why today's fleet or tomorrow's naval battles demand its special capabilities.

 

Instead, he touched briefly on its 10 major technical advances, emphasizing that the most important is its small crew.

 

"That is absolutely a critical step forward for us in the DDG 1000."

 

Such limp performances didn't matter in the Senate, which voted to fund another DDG 1000 in the spring. But it failed to sway House lawmakers, who chose not to include a ship in their funding bill. Analysts now predict that the Zumwalts, at $3 billion per ship - $5 billion by some estimates - will be just a two-ship class.

 

Even to lawmakers eager to fulfill its wishes, Navy leaders can't seem to express a clear vision for what ships they need and why they need them.

 

Instead, powerful forces in the House advocate building cheaper, but smaller, DDG 51-class destroyers until the day when, they say, the Navy decides exactly what kind of new ship it really wants.

 

Similar travails plague CG(X), the planned next cruiser; plans for more nuclear-powered vessels; and the question of the number of aircraft carriers the Navy in the fleet. Fed up with what they view as incomplete or uninspired answers, increasingly impatient lawmakers are trying to make up the Navy's mind themselves.

 

The combination poses serious risks to a Navy that has been reeling in recent years from budget and personnel cuts, increasing demands to contribute to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and questions about the relevance of blue-water warships in those wars and the war against terrorism.

 

Navy officials declined to be interviewed for this article.

 

DDG 1000 Destroyer

 

The Navy has never articulated a simple and forceful argument explaining the need for the Zumwalt-class ships, under development for more than a decade. Many officers remain confused about the destroyer's abilities and intended use.

 

"I certainly haven't seen a vigorous defense mounted," said one veteran retired officer. "The position papers are out there to support the ship, but nobody's standing up for it."

 

Former CNO Adm. Vern Clark - a surface warfare officer who was largely responsible for creating the new Littoral Combat Ship - generally described DDG 1000 as a technology driver for the fleet and a bridge to the CG(X) cruiser. Both of his successors, Adm. Mike Mullen and Roughead, who like Clark were surface officers, similarly offered only lukewarm support.

 

"Roughead is killing the ship by not advocating its specific capabilities," the veteran officer declared.

 

The DDG 1000 program manager, a captain, is trying to stir up support with a little-used, capabilities-based presentation dating from mid-2005. But he's getting little active support from the admirals - a fact noted on the Hill.

 

"That effort should be coming from the requirements flag officers," said one senior congressional staffer.

 

Some Navy officials say national-security concerns have made them reluctant to reveal details about the heavily classified ships. But observers dismissed that claim.

 

"You've got to be able to make the argument in terms you can put out in public," said retired Capt. Jan van Tol, a naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) and a former destroyer commander. "You may have all the good reasons in the world for having the ship, but if people don't know them, don't be surprised if you don't get funding."

 

The Navy's insistence on calling these huge, expensive vessels "destroyers" also rankles critics, including likely Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The former naval aviator has noted that the Zumwalts, intended to fight in coastal waters and pound ground targets with 155mm guns, have very different roles than existing destroyers - and certainly have un-destroyer-like price tags.

 

"I've never heard of a $3 billion destroyer," McCain has said on several occasions.

 

The current plan to build seven ships also works against the service, which originally wanted 32 new destroyers.

 

"Seven of anything is nothing, not after you wanted 32," said House Seapower subcommittee chairman Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., following a hearing in March. "Seven tells me they don't want it."

 

More DDG 51s

 

Taylor's district includes the sprawling Northrop Grumman Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., which builds Navy destroyers and amphibious ships. He opposes further Zumwalt construction in favor of building more DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

 

The Burkes are cheaper - $1.6 billion vs. $3 billion or more - and remain the world's most advanced warships, with the exception of the DDG 1000s. Some suggest new Burkes could replace early Flight I and II models, which don't have helicopter hangars, and could be built with open-architecture combat systems and extensive fiber-optic cabling and designed to be operated by smaller crews.

 

The Navy says no. Officials say the price tag for new Burkes could reach $2 billion apiece because the production line already has begun to close down. And at such prices, the Navy says, the Zumwalts would be better fighting value.

 

But half of every new ship class begun since the 1980s cost more than double its original unit cost. That's why analysts predict the Zumwalts will eventually cost closer to $5 billion, largely because they contain so much new technology that the risks and unknowns are higher. By contrast, the costs of building Burke destroyers are well understood.

 

The Navy may be ready to yield on this debate. In March, service acquisition chief John Thackrah revealed the Navy is developing contingency plans to build more 51s.

 

"What you're seeing," said one service official, "is the CNO, together with the secretary, taking control of the Navy program and making it viable."

 

Nuclear-Powered Warships

 

Navy testimony last year opened the door for nuclear-powered cruisers if oil prices surged above $70 a barrel. Oil recently touched $135 per barrel and is expected to rise further.

 

Nuclear power provides virtually unlimited range and enough energy to fuel powerful radars and directed-energy weapons.

 

Taylor and former subcommittee chairman Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., last year pushed through a provision to make all new major combat ships nuclear-powered unless the Navy asserts such a propulsion system is not in the national interest.

 

But so far, the Navy has offered little resistance. Despite solid potential arguments for sticking with less-expensive gas turbines, service leaders have remained, in the words of one congressional source, "curiously passive."

 

Now, in the absence of a clear position, Congress is poised to decide the issue.

 

Taylor, who has wondered aloud if the Navy is taking the nuclear-power requirement seriously, has his provision in place to force the Navy's hand. And if the first CG(X) cruiser is to be built beginning in 2011, long-lead procurement of nuclear components would need to be funded in 2009. That's the budget now under consideration.

 

The CG(X) Cruiser

 

Taylor and his nuclear-power allies are already worried the Navy is trying to manipulate that decision. They worry that the service's inability to complete and release the analysis of alternatives for the new cruiser is a ploy to postpone a decision on nuclear power and avoid buying reactors in 2009.

 

The study, in which the Navy is urging a panel of architects and engineers to choose the tumblehome hull form of the DDG 1000 for the cruiser, was to have been completed late last fall. But in November - only weeks after taking office - Roughead sent it back with more questions. Draft versions now are said to be circulating, but officially, the service is not forecasting a date for completing or releasing the study.

 

Unease also persists in naval architecture circles about the stability of the Zumwalt's tumblehome hull, which is limited in the amount of growth it can absorb.

 

'Unfunded Programs'

 

One of the more blatant contradictions in the Navy's public statements is the question of a tenth LPD 17 amphibious ship.

 

Only nine LPDs are in the fleet plan, and the ninth was authorized for construction last year. The Marines adamantly want 11; another LPD was the No. 1 item on the Corps' last two annual unfunded programs list, a wish list provided each year at Congress's request.

 

The Navy listed the ship first on its 2007 unfunded list and gave it a No. 2 priority in 2008 - yet service leaders rebuffed House efforts last year to buy it, saying they'd rather put the money elsewhere.

 

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee, has declared his strong intention to pay for the ship this year and the House, ignoring renewed Navy protests, added the ship to the 2009 budget.

 

Credibility

 

The Navy's No. 1 unfunded priority is "critical maritime patrol improvements" for aging P-3 patrol planes. A skeptic might ask: if something is truly critical, what is it doing on an unfunded requirements list?

 

This is the kind of question analysts ask repeatedly about a range of issues affecting fleet readiness.

 

Fleet sailors remain concerned over the viability of plans to staff Littoral Combat Ships with rotating crews.

 

The Marine Corps questions whether the Navy really supports the ambitious and expensive Sea Base concept.

 

The public, too, doubts the Navy's word on issues like the controversy over a proposed practice airstrip in North Carolina; the effects of sonars on marine mammals; and health issues and unexploded ammunition on the former bombing range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

 

And Congress - this year at least - adamantly turned back the Navy's request to allow a temporary reduction to 10 aircraft carriers next decade when the carrier Enterprise is retired before its replacement is ready.

 

Although many analysts feel the Navy's request is logical, Taylor in March declared the idea "dead on arrival."

 

Leadership Issues

 

Jerry Cann, the Navy acquisition chief in the 1990s, said the problems run to all levels of Navy leadership, not just the admirals.

 

"You can't separate the bluesuit Navy from the civilians. If you have strong civilian executives, you can help drive these things in the right direction," Cann said.

 

The issue isn't that Navy leaders set out to deliberately deceive the public or the Congress. Rather, it is that with good intentions, they have failed to anticipate the results of their actions.

 

"People weren't doing this out of malice and deception," van Tol said. "I cannot conceive of senior naval officers consciously acting deceptively. Certainly they can put spin on things or interpret things in a favorable light, but deliberate deception goes against the naval ethos. The vast majority of people behave honorably."

 

But being honorable has nothing to do with being honest with oneself, he said. The trouble is, leaders have insisted all along they could manage their way out of the impending trouble.

 

"The Navy needs to level with itself," van Tol said. "They've got problems. Once you've done that you can begin to deal with it."

 

[CV32: Emphasis mine.]

From Defense Aerospace

 

Op-Ed: Navy Destroyer Plans Don’t Make Sense

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued June 4, 2008)

By Loren Thompson, Ph.D.

 

If you think that having three surface warfare officers in a row at the helm of the U.S. Navy has created a bias in favor of surface combatants, then you must not be paying attention to news about naval shipbuilding. While a reasonably coherent roadmap has emerged for replacing cold-war aircraft carriers and submarines, plans for a family of future surface combatants are in disarray. That's a problem, because surface combatants -- frigates, destroyers, cruisers -- are the most common types of warship in the modern Navy. A growing chorus of critics is complaining that the failure of service leaders to provide a convincing rationale for next-generation surface combatants is putting the entire fleet modernization plan in jeopardy.

 

The latest salvo in this on-going battle was fired Monday by Christopher P. Cavas of Defense News, arguably the most capable journalist currently covering the Navy. Reporting on the service's limp efforts to explain to Congress why a bloated next-generation destroyer designated DDG-1000 needs to be built, Cavas noted that after ten years of development the Navy still hasn't come up with a convincing rationale for the warship, and "many officers remain confused about the destroyer's abilities and intended use." He went on to cite a veteran officer opining that the failure of Navy leaders to strongly support the destroyer is gradually killing the program.

 

That certainly seems to be the case. DDG-1000 grew out of an earlier program called DD-21 that was superseded in 2001 by a proposed family of future surface combatants. In addition to the new destroyer, there would be a missile-defense cruiser designated CG(X) and a frigate replacement designed for shallow-water operations called the Littoral Combat Ship. The Littoral Combat Ship has made good progress, although Navy Secretary Donald Winter recently picked a fight with both of the industry teams developing the vessel, objecting to cost growth that arose mainly out of the service's unrealistic cost estimates when the effort first began. Winter will depart government service soon and the littoral ship program can then get back on track.

 

But DDG-1000 and the companion missile-defense cruiser are another matter. At first the Navy said it wanted 32 next-generation destroyers. Then it said 24. Then it said 12. Now it says it wants seven, and congressional critics such as Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi are saying two should be enough. The problem with DDG-1000 isn't the technology, which is cutting-edge and can eventually be applied across the whole fleet. The problem is that the basic concept of the warship was misconceived. It displaces 14,500 tons of water, making it about 50% bigger than current DDG-51 destroyers, because it is built around two rapid-firing 155 mm. guns that are supposed to lob highly accurate shells a hundred miles inland in support of forces ashore.

 

Imagine floating off the coast of China or Iran and firing shells ashore. How long would such a ship survive? The whole idea is improbable. Which is why Congress needs to listen to Rep. Taylor and others who say the best course of action is to end the DDG-1000 effort and continue buying the existing DDG-51 destroyer.

 

DDG-51 only costs half as much to build as DDG-1000, and internal naval studies show it still has plenty of margin for growth in missions such as missile defense, anti-submarine warfare and land attack. It is already the most capable surface combatant operating anywhere in the world, and transitioning its Aegis combat system to a continuously improving open architecture would enable it to stay that way for decades to come, with sizable reductions in crew size.

 

So why would we stop building a winner like DDG-51 when its planned replacement is clearly such a loser?

Imagine floating off the coast of China or Iran and firing shells ashore. How long would such a ship survive? The whole idea is improbable.

 

While I would not count Dr. Thompson among the numerous 'mental lightweights' inside the Beltway, I think its more than a bit off the mark when commentators try and envision scenarios where any particular platform (DDG 1000 included) would be operating all by its lonesome in the offensive against some major power (eg. China or Iran, for example).

 

As if that would ever be the case. System of systems, people.