Mr. Slowguy, our resident Navy surface warfare expert, and I discussed a bit of this yesterday, in light of another collision between a U.S. Navy ship and a merchant vessel over in the Pacific Fleet area of operations near Singpore. Are we just asking our Navy to do too much and are the officers and Sailors running our Fleet, as well as the ships in that Fleet, simply wearing down because they have too much to do?
The linked article explores this question, and it's a serious one.
I wondered last night if perhaps the operational tempo (pace of operations, known in Navy milspeak as "OPTEMPO") laid on the Navy by various higher-ups -- in order to patrol the world's oceans and keep what's called the "sea lines of communication" (SLOC) open -- was realistic. Or is the Navy stretched too thin? I served both before, during, and after the 1980s build-up to a "600-ship Navy." Today, our Fleet is nowhere near that size, yet there are probably just as many mission tasks to cover.
It seems to me that the Navy's overall strategic mission is being forced on the sea service with a 272-ship (approximately) backbone of a Navy fleet when a bare-bones realistic assessment produced by the Navy calls for 304 to 308 ships just to cover minimum mission tasks. It may seem like 32 to 36 ships shouldn't have the kind of impact it does, but that's really a lot of ships when it comes to a naval force, believe me. You can do so much more, or more easily cover so much territory, with that many more ships, for a fact.
It would also take us 30 years, thereabouts, to get to that 308-ship minimum, which is simply too long and would -- to me -- put too much stress on the existing fleet. This is outside of a suggested SLEP, or "service life extension program," regime that would keep some current ships in the active fleet for two to three more decades rather than decommissioning them, something that might reduce that 30 years build-up time down to 10 or 15 years. (Although a SLEP "yard period" can be a multi-year commitment.)
What seems apparent to me is that we're asking the Navy to simply do too much with what it has. As I pointed out last night, the world's oceans haven't gotten any smaller and we still have almost all of them to patrol.
One could argue that, maybe, it shouldn't be our Navy's (and, by extension, our nation's) role to patrol all that water but I can't see a scenario where we would voluntarily give up that sort of power projection capability, given the fractious state of things among many countries abutting those oceans. Meaning, what goes on 'over there' -- without us also 'over there' -- could do us and our allies grievous harm in short order 'over here' if we don't maintain our naval might and its presence when needed and called for.
The U.S. Navy’s Greatest Enemy Might Be Exhaustion.
“The U.S. combat fleet is already over-stretched,” Seth Cropsey, director of the Center for American Seapower at the Hudson Institute told The National Interest.
“Being short of two Aegis-equipped DDGs that provide ballistic missile defense while North Korea is threatening to launch ballistic missiles at local U.S. targets or allies is deeply unhelpful and regrettably timed. The overall impact on the Navy should be measured not only in the loss of sailors’ lives and unavailability of the ships as they are repaired but in the possibility that requirements have exceeded capabilities so far that the training needed to avoid such accidents has been impaired.”
Bryan McGrath, managing director of the naval consultancy FerryBridge Group, agreed with Cropsey’s assessment.
“Two fewer DDGs—I believe both of which are BMD equipped—leaves a sizable hole in a fleet that is already too small for what is being asked of it in the Western Pacific,” McGrath told The National Interest.
“I imagine that the Navy will have to move ships out of their regular cycles from Hawaii and CONUS [continental United States] to cover down on Pacific requirements.”
It will not be easy to cover for the loss of the two destroyers, explains Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“With two FDNF (Forward Deployed Naval Forces) DDGs out, the Navy would either need to forego some operations, work the remaining 10 cruisers and destroyers harder, or bring ships from Hawaii or CONUS to cover for them,” Clark told The National Interest.
Indeed, the fact that the Navy is forcing its fleet to do more with fewer ships to perform its global mission might have contributed to both collisions."
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
The linked article explores this question, and it's a serious one.
I wondered last night if perhaps the operational tempo (pace of operations, known in Navy milspeak as "OPTEMPO") laid on the Navy by various higher-ups -- in order to patrol the world's oceans and keep what's called the "sea lines of communication" (SLOC) open -- was realistic. Or is the Navy stretched too thin? I served both before, during, and after the 1980s build-up to a "600-ship Navy." Today, our Fleet is nowhere near that size, yet there are probably just as many mission tasks to cover.
It seems to me that the Navy's overall strategic mission is being forced on the sea service with a 272-ship (approximately) backbone of a Navy fleet when a bare-bones realistic assessment produced by the Navy calls for 304 to 308 ships just to cover minimum mission tasks. It may seem like 32 to 36 ships shouldn't have the kind of impact it does, but that's really a lot of ships when it comes to a naval force, believe me. You can do so much more, or more easily cover so much territory, with that many more ships, for a fact.
It would also take us 30 years, thereabouts, to get to that 308-ship minimum, which is simply too long and would -- to me -- put too much stress on the existing fleet. This is outside of a suggested SLEP, or "service life extension program," regime that would keep some current ships in the active fleet for two to three more decades rather than decommissioning them, something that might reduce that 30 years build-up time down to 10 or 15 years. (Although a SLEP "yard period" can be a multi-year commitment.)
What seems apparent to me is that we're asking the Navy to simply do too much with what it has. As I pointed out last night, the world's oceans haven't gotten any smaller and we still have almost all of them to patrol.
One could argue that, maybe, it shouldn't be our Navy's (and, by extension, our nation's) role to patrol all that water but I can't see a scenario where we would voluntarily give up that sort of power projection capability, given the fractious state of things among many countries abutting those oceans. Meaning, what goes on 'over there' -- without us also 'over there' -- could do us and our allies grievous harm in short order 'over here' if we don't maintain our naval might and its presence when needed and called for.
The U.S. Navy’s Greatest Enemy Might Be Exhaustion.
“The U.S. combat fleet is already over-stretched,” Seth Cropsey, director of the Center for American Seapower at the Hudson Institute told The National Interest.
“Being short of two Aegis-equipped DDGs that provide ballistic missile defense while North Korea is threatening to launch ballistic missiles at local U.S. targets or allies is deeply unhelpful and regrettably timed. The overall impact on the Navy should be measured not only in the loss of sailors’ lives and unavailability of the ships as they are repaired but in the possibility that requirements have exceeded capabilities so far that the training needed to avoid such accidents has been impaired.”
Bryan McGrath, managing director of the naval consultancy FerryBridge Group, agreed with Cropsey’s assessment.
“Two fewer DDGs—I believe both of which are BMD equipped—leaves a sizable hole in a fleet that is already too small for what is being asked of it in the Western Pacific,” McGrath told The National Interest.
“I imagine that the Navy will have to move ships out of their regular cycles from Hawaii and CONUS [continental United States] to cover down on Pacific requirements.”
It will not be easy to cover for the loss of the two destroyers, explains Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“With two FDNF (Forward Deployed Naval Forces) DDGs out, the Navy would either need to forego some operations, work the remaining 10 cruisers and destroyers harder, or bring ships from Hawaii or CONUS to cover for them,” Clark told The National Interest.
Indeed, the fact that the Navy is forcing its fleet to do more with fewer ships to perform its global mission might have contributed to both collisions."
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."