A House Armed Services panel’s portion of the fiscal year 2024 defense policy bill seeks to fund another San Antonio-class Flight II amphibious transport dock ship (LPD) and prevent five ships from being retired as planned.
The Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee’s mark, or first draft of their portion of the larger FY ‘24 defense authorization bill, recommends the Navy procure nine ships including two Virginia-class attack submarines, one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, two Constellation-class guided-missile cruisers, one John Lewis-class T-AO fleet oiler, and one more San Antonio-class Flight II amphibious transport dock ship (LPD-33).
This is largely in line with the Navy’s FY ‘24 request, except for the LPD and without one submarine tender replacement (AS(X)) (Defense Daily, March 13).
The subcommittee looks ready to approve the Marine Corps’ preference to move forward with the LPDs despite another naval study directed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
The Marine Corps’ top unfunded priorities list item put LPD-33 as the top priority at a cost of $1.71 billion (Defense Daily, March 21)
In March, Berger said he added LPD-33 to the unfunded list because the Navy is not currently outlining a budget plan to retain the 31 amphibious ship minimum while seeking to decommission several Whidbey Island/Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ships (LSDs) earlier than planned. The LPD Flight II ships were originally meant to replace the aging LSDs (Defense Daily, March 29).
Also, in March, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Mike Gilday confirmed OSD made the decision to pause LPD procurement in favor of another study on whether LPDs should be continued or if there is a way to procure an even cheaper variant (Defense Daily, March 15).
Jay Stefany, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, has told the congressional defense committees that given the ideal procurement cadence for the LPDs of procurement every two years and since the Navy is procuring LPD-32 this fiscal year LPD-33 or an alternative would not need to be procured until FY 25.
Stefany also said the OSD-directed study is more of a cost study than earlier requirements studies that previously approved LPD Flight II as the next step.
The subcommittee mark also would save five ships the Navy is seeking to decommission.
The Navy’s FY ‘24 budget request seeks to retire the USS Cowpens (CG-63), Shiloh (CG-67), and Vicksburg (CG-69) guided-missile cruisers two to three years earlier than expected; USS Germantown (LSD-42), Gunston Hall (LSD-44), and Tortuga (LSD-46) dock landing ships two to six years earlier than planned, and the Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships USS Jackson (LCS-6) and Montgomery (LCS-8).
(Photo: U.S. Navy)
The subcommittee recommended preventing the Navy from using funds to retire, prepare to retire, inactivate or place in storage the Germantown, Gunston Hall and USS Tortuga LSDs as well as the cruisers USS Shiloh (CG-67) and USS Cowpens (CG-63) cruisers. It would also prevent the Navy from retiring “no more than three other guided-missile cruisers.”
In March, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and Gilday said the cost of retaining these ships is not worth the effort versus redirecting the funds to other priorities and newer ships (Defense Daily, March 22).
However, in April Del Toro told the House Armed Services Committee while maintaining all the cruisers the Navy has said it plans to retire is not realistic due to costs and limitations, three of them could receive more investments to extend them by one or two deployments each (Defense Daily, April 28).
The Navy Secretary specifically argued Vicksburg and Cowpens are bad candidates and will not be deployed again, regardless of how much money is put into them due to their maintenance and repair issues.