Navy denies interest in new force options

[unhappycamper]

3 new shipbuilding plans
Spokesman calls numbers ‘ludicrous.’


Navy denies interest in new force options
By Vago Muradian - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 11, 2007 6:13:09 EST

The Navy’s top strategist has floated to the chief of naval operations three alternatives to the service’s current 30-year shipbuilding plan that if adopted would radically reshape American naval power.

The three options are contained in a 26-page briefing titled “Three Futures, One Navy, A Portfolio Analysis” by Vice Adm. John Morgan, the service’s strategy chief, which was e-mailed to Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, just before the Thanksgiving holiday.

The force structure options — a 263-ship fleet optimized for major combat operations against a peer competitor; a 534-ship shaping force tailored for coalition and maritime security operations; and a 474-ship balanced force able to perform high- and low-end missions — would replace the current 30-year shipbuilding plan. Each option is based in part on the findings of a 2005 “table top exercise” involving Lockheed Martin, the maker of the Aegis combat system that equips the Navy’s cruisers and destroyers, as well as one of the two builders of the service’s new Littoral Combat Ship.

The current 30-year plan aims to yield a 313-ship fleet by 2013 — up from 280 currently — assuming projected investment levels remain unchanged and existing programs remain on budget and schedule.

But Navy spokesmen are already dismissing Morgan’s brief as just a think piece.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/12/navy_newshipbuilding_071211/