The gap in production between the LHA-9 and LHA-10 amphibious assault ships will result in a cost increase for the Navy and impact the industrial base, a service leader said today.
The Navy’s fiscal year 2023 budget request pushes LHA-10 out to 2031, which is about a nine- or 10-year gap in production from LHA-9, according to Jay Stefany, who is performing the duties of Navy assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition.
“For the LHA-type ship, we see about a five-year spacing between ships as ideal from a learning perspective and the industrial base, the suppliers staying online and be able to produce, anything more than that would be not just degradation of the ability of the supply base to support but [an] increase [in] the cost," Stefany said during a House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee hearing. "The ship now is at the nine- or 10-year spacing from LHA-9 so we would see a cost increase and industrial base impact both."
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), a member of the seapower subcommittee and a former surface warfare officer, said that it’s difficult to improve the industrial base while making decisions that would “gut” the workforce.
“This is four years now that Rep. [Jared] Golden [D-ME] and I have gone through these [defense authorization bill] hearings and we hear nothing other than ‘we need to improve the industrial base, we need to have trained workforce,’ yet you submit a request that you admit is more expensive in the long run and essentially guts the workforce as far as building these large-deck amphib ships,” Luria said today.
Lt. Gen Karsten Heckl, commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, detailed the risk the Marine Corps would face if the number of amphibious ships drop to 24 in the coming years. At the end of fiscal year 2021, the Navy had an amphibious force of 31 ships.
“The fact [is] that ships are being decommissioned faster than they're being procured and delivered and employed. It’s a simple fact that under this plan, we will go to a number of 24 amphibs in the next three to five years. What that translates to for us is risk, which is always any military person's prime concern,” Heckl said.
Marine Expeditionary Units with Amphibious Ready Groups are “one of the most in-demand assets by combat commanders, so it's going to represent risks if we go below 31" amphibs, Heckl said.
The risk in reducing amphibs “simply means that we will not be able to have adequate forces forward to respond in a timely manner. The Marine Corps is tasked to be the crisis-response force for the nation. The implication of crisis response is timely response,” Heckl said.
The service would not be able to remain forward and provide a timely and capable response, Heckl added.
“The Marine Corps' concern is the coming years when we go down to 24. It is the assessment -- my assessment -- that at 24 we will likely be able to provide adequate capability in the Indo-Pacific and we will be forced to take risk in [U.S. European Command], [U.S. Central Command], and [U.S. Africa Command]. There [are] no two ways around it,” Heckl said.
Luria questioned whether 24 amphibious ships will provide total readiness in the Indo-Pacific.
“You said ‘likely’ be able to in Indo-Pacific. Where's your hesitation there? Why did you use the word likely?” Luria said.
“Based on readiness rates of ships, I'm always cautious. I will approach from the worst-case scenario vice the best case. So that's why I use the word likely,” Heckl answered.
The service wants to delay or decommission ships that it uses every day, such as the LPD, LHA and LSD programs, according to Luria.
“It's curious to me because the Navy Public Affairs every day [are] literally talking about these very ships that we plan on decommissioning as proposed in this budget, every day they're out there doing operations, deployed in 6th Fleet, one of them just left in my district recently on a deployment and they're performing important missions for our country,” Luria said. “But just tell me, am I correct, you're requesting to decommission these ships in this budget?”
“I certainly am not . . . and the LPD was going to be truncated at 31. Actually, we got advanced on 32 and the [Marine Corps] Commandant [Gen. David Berger] has put LPD-33 as the top of our unfunded priority list for U.S. Marine Corps,” Heckl said.
The committee has heard the Marine Corps “loud and clear” on funding LPD-33, Luria said.
Subcommittee Chairman Joe Courtney (D-CT) echoed Luria’s statement on the service’s unfunded priorities list and indicated that Congress will fund LPD-33.