Category Archives: Submarine Forces

Seapower Mark on FY 14 Defense Bill

Seapower Mark on FY 14 Defense Bill

House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces issued their mark on the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget request, “which designates essential funding and sets priorities for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force,” read a statement from subcommittee chair Rep. Randy Forbes (R- Va.) and ranking member Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) on Tuesday.

“Having recently received a 30 Year Shipbuilding Plan from the Navy with no basis in reality, our mark requires a detailed roadmap for how the service will reach its shipbuilding goals under likely budget scenarios,” Chairman Forbes said. “We have laid the groundwork to ask difficult questions of the Navy about the cost overruns on the Ford-class aircraft carrier, while also ensuring the Navy has an additional Virginia-class attack submarine each year. And we have made investments in technologies like the UCLASS carrier-launched unmanned vehicle, which will ensure the viability of the Carrier Air Wing for decades to come,” Forbes said in the statement. Read More

Coast Guard Strategy Calls for Greater Arctic Emphasis

Coast Guard Strategy Calls for Greater Arctic Emphasis

Coast Guard Commandant, Adm. Robert Papp, in front of a map of Barrow, Alaska during a recent trip. US Coast Guard Photo

Coast Guard Commandant, Adm. Robert Papp, in front of a map of Barrow, Alaska during a recent trip. US Coast Guard Photo

The U.S. Coast Guard has unveiled its new strategy for the Arctic outlines a ten-year roadmap for patrolling the last great maritime frontier, in a Tuesday presentation by Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Papp in Washington, D.C.

“The Arctic Ocean is rapidly changing from a solid expanse of inaccessible ice fields into a growing navigable sea, attracting increased human activity and unlocking access to vast economic potential and energy resources,” Papp said in a speech in conjunction with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Read More

Opinion: U.S. Sub Suppliers at Risk From Foreign Competition

Opinion: U.S. Sub Suppliers at Risk From Foreign Competition

 

U.S. made parts in this Virginia-class submarine could be replaced by foreign components.

U.S. made parts in this Virginia-class submarine could be replaced by foreign components.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert has long warned of a decline in U.S. companies that provide critical components to the nation’s most technologically sophisticated hardware: nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers.

“I worry about the industrial base,” Greenert said at the Credit Suisse/McAllese Defense Programs Conference in Washington, D.C., on March 12. “Ninety percent of the industry that builds our nuclear components is single source. . . . It’s the second or third tier. It’s ‘Bob’s Nuclear Valve Shop.’” Read More

Navy Plan Calls for More Sub Funding

Navy Plan Calls for More Sub Funding

Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Tennessee (SSBN-734). US Navy Photo

Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Tennessee (SSBN-734). US Navy Photo

The Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan warns Congress unless the Pentagon can find more money to complete the Navy’s planned 12 new Ohio-class Replacement ballistic missile submarines the service will be unable to meet its future obligations. Read More

Navy: Ohio Replacement Negotiations 'Have Not Progressed'

Navy: Ohio Replacement Negotiations ‘Have Not Progressed’

An undated artist's rendering of the Ohio Replacement. Naval Sea Systems Command

An undated artist’s rendering of the Ohio Replacement. Naval Sea Systems Command

The Navy’s top acquisition official told the Senate Armed Services Committee Seapower Subcommittee that talks with the Defense Department “have not progressed” in putting the Ohio-class ballistic-missile replacement program into a special National Capital Ships Account.

Testifying on 8 May, Sean Stackley said the long-range impact of keeping the 12 Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines in the Navy’s shipbuilding account means “we will not be able to hit the numbers” to build other ships. Read More

Work and Roughead Talk Fleet Protection

Work and Roughead Talk Fleet Protection

Ships from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower from Carrier Strike Group. US Navy Photo

Ships from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower from Carrier Strike Group in 2012. US Navy Photo

Electromagnetic rail guns, lasers and anti-torpedo torpedoes may be the key technologies necessary to ensure the continued viability of the U.S. Navy’s carrier strike groups when operating against an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment, top former service officials told USNI News.

In the past few years the Pentagon has placed an emphasis on countering the challenges of A2/AD—a concept broadly defined as denying an assaulting force access to a battle space. In the maritime context, the traditional A2/AD tools have been mines and submarines. With the development of increasingly advanced and inexpensive antiship missiles, the calculus of an assaulting force has placed an emphasis having enough weapon capacity to counter threats. Read More

NAVSEA's McCoy Speaks

NAVSEA’s McCoy Speaks

Commander Naval Sea Systems Command, Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy in 2008. US Navy Photo

Commander Naval Sea Systems Command, Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy in 2008. US Navy Photo

Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command has a rare interview in the latest issue of Proceedings.

While at the helm of NAVSEA for an unprecedented five years McCoy was mostly media shy while he was a driving force to realign years of damage to the way the Navy fixed its surface ships. Read More

Stackley: Funding Ohio Replacement 'Daunting Challenge'

Stackley: Funding Ohio Replacement ‘Daunting Challenge’

USS Maryland (SSBN-738) transits the Saint Marys River.

USS Maryland (SSBN-738) transits the Saint Marys River.

“The most daunting challenge” facing the Navy’s newly released shipbuilding plan is paying for the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine replacement when it is expected to take $100 billion—over 12 to 15 years—from that account, the service’s top acquisition official said. Read More

CNO: Sequestration Puts New Missile Sub At Risk

CNO: Sequestration Puts New Missile Sub At Risk

Adm. Jonathan Greenert testifies before the Senate on the Navy's budget on Wednesday. US Navy Photo

Adm. Jonathan Greenert testifies before the Senate on the Navy’s budget on Wednesday. US Navy Photo

The Chief of Naval Operations said the Ohio-class replacement is his “number one program of concern,” although it remains “on track with all the R&D” to begin construction in 2021, with delivery expected in 2029.

Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee on 24 April, Adm. Jonathan Greenert and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus expressed concern about its cost, the impact of sequestration on the program and the impact of building it on the rest of the shipbuilding program.
Mabus said, “Sequestration holds the potential to impact this in a significant way.” Read More