House budget wants more boats from US Navy than requested.

Congress Demands Navy Build More Ships

It’s not likely this has happened often, if ever, in the annals of haggles over U.S. military budgets: Congress is demanding the Navy float more boats than it wants to.

The House Armed Services Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee has approved a proposed spending plan that calls for construction of nine battle-force ships, which the Navy asked for, but extends the service of five of 11 ships it wanted to mothball.

“It is critical that we continue to grow the Navy’s capabilities. The president’s budget, however, proposed to build only nine ships in [fiscal year] 2024, only seven ships in 2025. The administration also chose to divest eight ships before their expected service life,” subcommittee chair Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) said. “This is not the right signal to send China as they continue on their trajectory to build a 500-ship fleet by 2030.”

The Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee was one of six House Armed Services Committee panels that quickly, and unanimously, on June 13 each adopted their components of the proposed $874.2 fiscal year 2024 national defense budget.

Next stop for the draft National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), filed as House Bill 2670, is its first hearing before the entire 59-member House Armed Services Committee on June 21. From there, it moves onto the Senate for adoption before fiscal year 2024 begins on Oct. 1.

Marines Best Navy in ‘Amphib’ Tussle

While the Navy will get the nine new ships it sought, the panel’s $32.28 ship-procurement proposal includes 0 million for an amphibious warfare ship the Marine Corps lobbied for, but that the Navy didn’t request, while canceling about $1.6 billion in proposed construction contracts for a submarine tender, service craft, and auxiliary personnel lighter.

In June 2021, in its first annual update the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan, the Biden administration scaled down the size of the fleet planned during the Trump administration, from 400 ships by 2050 to between 321–372, with 355 ships the target.

In its fiscal year 2023 budget, the administration requested funding for nine new combat ships while decommissioning 16. Congress agreed to build the nine ships, but only consented to mothballing four of the 16 targeted for the scrapyard.

In its fiscal year 2024 budget request, the administration proposed building nine new ships while divesting 11, including three cruisers, three amphibious dock-landing ships, and two littoral combat ships.

The ship-building plan that will go before the full House Armed Services Committee calls for construction of:

• Two Virginia-class submarines
• One Columbia class ballistic missile submarine
• Two Arleigh Burke destroyers
• Two guided missile frigates
• A fleet oiler
• The amphibious transport dock ship (LPD) that the Marines requested

In addition, the panel’s plan halts the retirement of three amphibious ships and two cruisers the Navy wanted to mothball.

The cruisers are among 17 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers the Navy wants to replace with Arleigh Burke-class Flight III destroyers. The Navy’s plan calls for all 17, built in the 1980s through mid-1990s, to be mothballed by fiscal year 2027.

The Navy’s fiscal year 2024 plan called for retiring three amphibious ships among seven Whidbey-class landing dock ships (LHDs) being replaced by San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships (LPD).

The LHDs/LPDs are among a fleet of amphibious ships that include helicopter assault landing (LHA) ships and multi-purpose amphibious assault (LSDs) ships that resemble small aircraft carriers designed to support Marine expeditionary forces.

The Navy maintains two Marine expeditionary units (MEUs) at sea at all times to respond to unfolding crises. To support those two MEUs and five other MEUs training ashore, a 2019 Amphibious Force Requirements Study determined a 31-vessel fleet of amphibious assault ships was “the bare minimum necessary” and Congress installed that number as a statutory baseline.

The ideal 31-ship alignment is 10 LHD/LHAs and 21 LPD/LSD ships, according to the Navy. But under its budget request, three LDHs were designated for divestment with no replacement other than incremental finding for an LPD with no delivery date. This would trim the current 32-ship “amphib” fleet to 29 ships.

“It is my view the president’s budget makes a critical mistake with the decision to press ‘pause’ on the Marine’s amphibious ship-building program,” Kelly said.

“Let me be clear here: we should maintain a minimum of 31 amphibious ships so the Marines can meet their operational needs to project strength both in peace and in times of conflict,” he continued, “because it sets a better course for U.S. seapower by building on our capabilities.”