The Navy plans to halt the shrinkage in our fleet's hulls. Of course, to do this the Navy had to assume they'd get far more money than Congress would ever appropriate and that ship costs will suddenly stop their historic pattern of skyrocketing:
After dwindling to its smallest size in about a century, the Navy's 279-ship fleet will grow to 313 ships over the next decade.
A new aircraft carrier will be purchased every four or five years, and submarine production will double.
But outside the Navy, who believes it?Not budget experts, who warn that the billions of additional dollars needed in coming years are unlikely to materialize.
Not independent naval analysts, who say the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan is based on too many optimistic assumptions about cost growth.
And certainly not some pivotal members of Congress, who have blasted the plan as "pure fantasy."
But other than those two problems, the plan is dandy.
Since we can't seem to build a cheap warship that can handle moderate levels of threats as our old Perry class frigates did, the Navy may need to go to modularized auxiliary cruisers for the numbers the Navy rightly claims it needs to operate globally:
To create auxiliary cruisers, we could build and stockpile modules in shipping containers that include missiles (SAMs and SSMs) and fire control as well as modules with gun turrets for smaller weapons, 57mm or smaller. Other modules could support helicopters or UAVs. Other modules would contain the command and communications gear to plug the ship into the Navy network. Naval reservists could be assigned to these modules and could train with them during peacetime.
In war, the modules could be attached to the decks of conscripted civilian ships and create instant warships. If plugged into the Navy's network, they'd contribute tremendous offensive power at low cost. In this case, they'd be a tremendous asset compared to the traditional auxiliary cruisers. And with our current fleet of few but high quality ships, the lack of numbers means we simply can't go everywhere we need to or must use a ship with more capability than needed because nothing else is available. Auxiliary cruisers would provide the numbers we need in war.
I understand that the Navy worries that Congress will not view such modularized auxiliary cruisers as supplements to the fleet but as substitutes for warships. Heck, I'd rather have 50-60 $100 million light frigate-sized warships than auxiliary cruisers.
But if the Navy would rather have 280 warships than have 250 warships and the ability to put 50 modularized auxiliary cruisers to sea at short notice, you have wonder if numbers matter as much as the Navy claims.
