Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military planning
Languages : en
Pages : 29
Book Description
As directed by the Congress, every year the Navy submits a report with the President’s budget that describes the planned inventory, purchases, deliveries, and retirements of the ships in its fleet for the next 30 years. In this report, the Congressional Budget Office analyzes the Navy’s fiscal year 2019 shipbuilding plan and estimates the costs of implementing it. 1. Inventory. The Navy currently has 285 battle force ships, but it aims to build and maintain a 355-ship force. 2. Purchasing Plan. The Navy plans to purchase 301 new ships between 2019 and 2048: 245 combat ships and 56 support ships. If the Navy adheres to the schedule for retiring ships outlined in the 2019 plan, it would not meet its goal of 355 ships at any time over the next 30 years. 3. Fleet Size. After releasing its shipbuilding plan, the Navy announced that it would extend the service life of its destroyers from 35 or 40 years to 45 years and that it would extend the service life of up to 7 attack submarines from 33 to 43 years. With those service life extensions, the fleet would reach 355 ships in 2034 but would fall short of the Navy’s specific goals for some types of ships. 4. Fleet Cost. Buying the new ships would cost an average of $26.7 billion per year in 2018 dollars, CBO estimates. If all costs associated with the Navy’s shipbuilding budget are included, such as the cost of refueling nuclear-powered aircraft carriers or outfitting new ships with various small pieces of equipment after they are built, CBO estimates that the total shipbuilding budget would average $28.9 billion per year, one-third more than the Navy’s estimate. 5. Comparison With Previous Budgets. That total is 80 percent more than the average shipbuilding budget the Navy has received over the past 30 years and about 50 percent more than the average budget of the past 6 years, a period of increasing shipbuilding appropriations.
