During his trip to California this week, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter detailed a number of shipbuilding, aviation and munitions investments from the fiscal 2017 budget request, including a plan to buy an anti-ship version of the SM-6 missile that was secretly tested last month.
The Pentagon will request $2.9 billion over the next five years to maximize the production of the SM-6 made by Raytheon [RTN], and transform it from a surface-to-air missile used to destroy cruise and ballistic missiles to a surface-to-surface capability that can bring down a ship from a distance.
“By taking the defensive speed and maneuverability that’s already in our Aegis destroyers’ vertical launch cells, and leveraging them for offensive surface warfare lethality, that makes it a potent new capability for you,” he told sailors during a Feb. 3 visit at Naval Base San Diego. “It’s also a good deal for the taxpayer, because they’re getting two capabilities in one missile. We know this works. We actually tested it secretly last month, and it worked.”
In the area of aviation, the Navy will request funds over the next five years for 10 additional F-35Cs made by Lockheed Martin [LMT] and 16 F/A-18E/Fs made by Boeing [BA], he said. “Those buys are all getting much bigger to give the Navy and Marine Corps enough, both fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft for today’s fights, and also for tomorrow’s fights.”
The Super Hornet buy not only helps to extend Boeing’s production line in St. Louis, Mo., but it could help alleviate the Navy’s fighter shortfall until the service fields the F-35 in 2018. On top of the five F/A-18E/Fs and 7 E/A-18G Growlers funded by Congress last year, the service needs another “16 Super Hornets or so” to close the gap, Rear. Adm. Mike Manazir, the Navy’s director of air warfare (
In a separate appearance at Naval Air Station China Lake, Calif., Carter announced additional investments to the Navy’s munitions portfolio to be made over the next five years, including: $2 billion for 4,000 Tomahawk missiles and the development of an anti-ship version, $927 million for the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) and $418 million for the anti-radiation homing missile (AARGM-ER) (Defense Daily, Feb. 3).
The service is also making changes to its shipbuilding plan to prioritize undersea warfare and its most high-end warships, Carter said in San Diego. The future years defense program (FYDP), which forecasts the spending from 2017 to 2021, will include 10 Aegis destroyers, funds to modernize the combat systems on 12 existing destroyers, nine Virginia-class attack submarines and an additional Virginia payload module.
The service also expects to spend $600 million over the next five years on unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs), he said.
However, those investments come at the expense of a truncated Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program of record, which Carter confirmed will be reduced to 40 LCS and frigates. The Navy will build up to a fleet size of 308 ships overall, but it needs to ensure that they are balanced to meet advanced, high-end threats.
“For missions like minesweeping and anti-submarine warfare, the LCS is terrific. But now in 2016, we need to balance our shipbuilding investments among higher-end, more capable ships,” he said. “[The] Navy’s own warfighting analysis concluded that 40 LCS were sufficient. So that’s how many we’re going to buy. Over the next 10 years, that will allow us to put about $8 billion more into high-end capabilities. And that is the right decision for us to make at this strategic turning point, so that we have all the lethal ships and the lethal capabilities that I’ve been talking about.”
The Pentagon’s $582.7 billion defense budget will be unveiled on Feb. 9.