The following is the Congressional Budget Office report, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2019 Shipbuilding Plan.
From the report
The Department of Defense (DoD) submitted the Navy’s 2019 shipbuilding plan, which covers fiscal years 2019 to 2048, to the Congress in February 2018. The average annual cost of carrying out that plan over the next 30 years would be about $28.9 billion in 2018 dollars, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. The Navy’s 2019 shipbuilding plan differs substantially from its 2017 plan in its goal for the total inventory of battle force ships, the number and types of ships that the Navy would purchase, and the funding proposed to implement the plan. If fully carried out, the shipbuilding plan would represent the largest naval buildup since the Reagan Administration in the 1980s.
The Navy’s 2019 Plan Aims to Expand the Fleet to 355 Battle Force Ships
In September 2018, the Navy’s fleet numbered 285 battle force ships—aircraft carriers, submarines, surface combatants, amphibious ships, combat logistics ships, and some support ships. The Navy’s goal (in military parlance, its requirement), as stated in its 2019 shipbuilding plan and reflecting its 2016 force structure assessment, is to build and maintain a fleet of 355 battle force ships. Toward that goal, the Navy would buy 301 ships over the 2019–2048 period: 245 combat ships and 56 combat logistics and support ships. If the Navy adhered to the schedule for retiring ships outlined in the 2019 plan, however, it would not meet the goal of 355 ships at any time over the next 30 years.
In testimony on April 12, 2018, two months after the Navy released its 2019 plan, senior Navy officials told the Congress that the Navy intends to extend the service life of all DDG-51 destroyers to 45 years, 5 to 10 years longer than indicated in the 2019 and earlier shipbuilding plans. It also expects to extend the life of up to 7 Los Angeles class submarines from 33 years to about 43 years. Together, the 2019 plan and the service life extensions would allow the Navy to reach a 355-ship fleet by 2034, although it would fall short of the specific goals for some types of ships that were identified in the Navy’s 2016 force structure assessment. As those developments illustrate, the size of the Navy does not depend on ship construction alone; the length of time that particular ships remain in the fleet also affects the force structure.
CBO Estimates That Funding for New Ships in the Navy’s Plan Would Average $26.7 Billion per Year
The Navy estimates that buying the new ships specified in the 2019 plan would cost $631 billion (in 2018 dollars) over 30 years, or an average of $21.0 billion per year— $3.3 billion more per year than the Navy estimated newship construction would cost under its 2017 plan. Using its own models and assumptions, CBO estimates that those new ships would cost $801 billion (in 2018 dollars) over 30 years, or an average of $26.7 billion per year.
