As the military world broadens in scale and increases in complexity due to the speed of technological advances, the U.S. Navy wants to scrap 24 ships, including five cruisers and a pair of Los Angeles-class submarines.
The reduction in hulls is designed to help it meet cost-cutting measures needed to maintain the existing fleet at full operational readiness.
AP reports Navy planners seek to decommission nine ships in the Freedom-class of littoral combat ships — warships that cost taxpayers some $4.5 billion in total. All told the decommissioning list would surpass the proposed nine ships to be built.
The cuts would reduce the size of the 297-ship fleet that’s already surpassed by China in sheer numbers.
China’s navy is on track to be double the size of the United States’ by 2030, which puts U.S. interests at risk in the Asia Pacific and around the world, as Breitbart News reported.
Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, defended the proposal that emphasizes long-range weapons and modern warships, while shedding other ships ill equipped to face current threats.
“We need a ready, capable, lethal force more than we need a bigger force that’s less ready, less lethal, and less capable,” he said Monday at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space symposium in Maryland.
The House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday grilled Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the proposal.
U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Virginia, suggested the ship cuts were “grossly irresponsible” when the U.S. Navy has dipped from 318 ships to 297, while the Chinese fleet has grown from 210 to 360 ships over the past two decades with the aim of building further and faster.
Milley said it’s important to focus on the Navy’s capabilities rather than the size of its fleet even as it sizes up China as a potential future foe, the AP report outlined.
“I would bias towards capability rather than just sheer numbers,” he said.
Last week the U.S. Navy announced it wants to buy one last San Antonio-class amphibious ship and then end the production line as outlined in its fiscal 2023 budget request, Defense News reports.
Under the Navy’s proposal, it would buy just three of the 13 Flight IIs and then end the program, shrinking the amphibious fleet dramatically as the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships hit the end of their service lives and are decommissioned.
Meanwhile Beijing looks to build and build vessels to help drive its increasing presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
As of 2012, the Chinese navy had 512 ships, according to Britain’s International Institute of Strategic Studies.
It now has 777 assets, mainly seafaring vessels, the database Globalfirepower.com says.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.