A recent change in how the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) counts ballistic missile defense (BMD) ships lowers projected future totals from what the agency estimated in its Fiscal Year 2016 budget request to Congress, USNI News has learned.
Instead of 48 “BMD capable ships” the MDA estimated the U.S. would have by FY 2020 the force will be instead 39 “BMD deployable ships” — a difference of nine ships.
The change came during a conference between MDA and Navy officials in late June and was made to better align the agency with how the service counts its assets.
Prior to a June change, the MDA had counted a newly BMD capable ship as one that had the necessary hardware to operate but didn’t account for the at least six months of training the Navy crew needed to be qualified to effectively operate the ship.
According to the BMD counts obtained by USNI News, the numbers were aligned up to FY 2015 but began to diverge in FY 2016 and beyond until the 2020 totals.
|
MDA PB16 |
FY15 |
FY16 |
FY17 |
FY18 |
FY19 |
FY20 |
|
BMD Capable Ships |
33 |
35 |
37 |
40 |
43 |
48 |
When asked for additional information on why MDA shifted how it counted BMD ships, the agency provided a brief statement to USNI News and did not elaborate.
“The Missile Defense Agency has aligned BMD ship counting with the Navy methodology,” read the complete MDA statement.
|
|
FY15 |
FY16 |
FY17 |
FY18 |
FY19 |
FY20 |
|
|
BMD Deployable Ships |
33 |
33 |
33 |
36 |
38 |
39 |
In addition to revising its count for new BMD ships, the MDA and Navy agreed they would remove Ticonderoga-class cruisers from the BMD ship count when they start their modernization availability.
As part of the service’s plan for upgrades, the cruisers will lose their basic BMD capability during the availability.
At least one member of Congress told USNI News the agency’s projections of BMD assets was “misleading.”
“The Missile Defense Agency’s proposal to count a ship as being BMD-capable when it’s crew has yet to receive its needed training defies logic, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, told USNI News in a statement.
Forbes compared the MDA’s methodology to the Navy counting the Ticonderoga-class cruisers it plans to sideline for modernization and leave with a reduced crew as BMD capable.
“Showing ships with untrained crews as BMD-capable is as misleading as including cruisers removed from the fleet for up to four years as contributing to the Navy’s BMD mission,” he said.
The revision in the MDA BMD count comes as the service struggles to effectively modernize its fleet of Aegis-equipped Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyers (DDG-51) to include the in-demand capability. According to the Pentagon, the demand from operational commanders is for about 70 BMD capable ships versus the 33 in the inventory today.
Earlier this year, USNI News reported the service planned to further reduce the number of BMD upgrades to Flight IIA Arleigh Burke due to budget constraints.
