The Black Forrest wrote:The East Marches II wrote:
Probably one or two more. Fairchild Republic died post-Cold War due to that peace dividend and Martin merged. Vought I think also fell to the Cold War cuts. I wasn't around then, Black Forrest seems knowledge on the matter. Maybe he can help.
Did not review the whole thread but to the question. Many. Just from the companies mentioned
Lockeed and it various companies.
Martin Marietta and its various companies
Boeing
UT
GD
BAE used to be British Aerospace and GEC Marconi Electronic Systems.
Northrop Grumman were separate back then.
Fairchild is still around but the aerodefense stuff I think is gone. I think the aircraft portion ended in the 90s if not early 2000s.
Vought became LTV and it was still doing aerodefense till the 90s I think. Those parts were sold off and I think they are still involved with various projects with Boeing and Lockheed. I want to say they have a hand in the F35.....
Good information, thanks for responding.
Oil exporting People wrote:While I am likewise a STRATFOR reader (I own both The Next 100 Years and The Next Decade), it's important to note they're reporting trends that can be responded to. For example, Friedman's prediction for the disintegration of Russia has already been retracted by STRATFOR in their 2015-2025 Decade forecast. Indeed, it's important to note that the Russians noted the same trends as STRATFOR back in the 1990s and have worked to counter them since then. Indeed, Dugin's strategy suggestions are clearly being followed by Russian leaders and have so far wrought clear geopolitical wins for Moscow.
Now, with regards to Russian military power and its comparison to that of the US and NATO, the RAND Corporation (Which has been hired by the U.S. Government since the 1950s to handle intelligence and do wargaming for them, among other things) currently states that Russia can overrun the Baltic States in 36 Hours. As I noted earlier, the U.S. Army has been brought down to 20 effective BCTs to police the entire world; this means the U.S. has fewer troops than it invaded Iraq with to deal with all the threats facing it at this juncture. Say we get into a confrontation with the Russians, and we're forced to deploy all available BCTs there to face them. What happens if North Korea than invades the South? We have no ready strategic reserves available, and to throw unprepared and unequipped troops into battle historically leads to mass slaughter.
How about the U.S. Air Power advantage? In 2013, flight training dropped as low as 120 hours and has since only recovered to about 150 hours, which means your average American pilot is getting less training then his Russian counterpart. To further put this in context, the Air Force back in the 1980s considered below 180 Hours for a pilot meant they were unfit for combat duties; for a real world example of what this means, the Luftwaffe was only giving its pilots 170 Hours of training by 1944. In addition to a pilot quality shortage, the Air Force is also having a pilot shortage period, as well as lacking in maintenance personnel. This, along with a spare parts shortage and the increasing age of the air frames themselves, means readiness is only at about 50% with increasing issues in just maintaining the aircraft. The situation is even worse for the Navy and Marine Corps, with half of the Navy's total air power grounded while 62% of their F-18s are likewise.
Speaking of the Navy:Last December, the Navy issued its 2016 Force Structure Assessment, which called for a future ship strength of 355 ships—an increase from the 2012 assessment which called for a 308-ship fleet. To reach 355, according to the report, the Navy would be required to double its current annual budget, which is essentially unrealistic in both current and expected future fiscal environments.”
Which means it’s never going to happen, no matter what anyone says or promises to do.
The Congressional Budget Office released a report titled ‘Costs of Building a 355-Ship Navy’ on April 24 that addressed the reality of what it would take to reach this target number. The report states:
“The earliest the Navy could achieve its goal of a 355-ship objective would be in 2035, or in about 18 years, provided that it received sufficient funding….CBO estimates that, over the next 30 years, meeting the 355-ship objective would cost the Navy an average of about $26.6 billion annually for ship construction, which is more than 60 percent above the average amount the Congress has appropriated for that purpose over the past 30 years and 40 percent more than the amount appropriated for 2016….To establish a 355-ship fleet, the Navy would need to purchase around 329 new ships over 30 years.”
The CBO report also gets into the costs above and beyond the price of the ships themselves. Don’t forget, more ships mean more helicopters and aircraft to fly from them, more unmanned systems to support them and more weapons to arm them. And more personnel to train and pay, more sailors and civilians to train the larger force requirement, more fuel and supplies to operate the additional ships not to mention the increased maintenance budgets needed to keep the ships combat ready. It is not a cheap proposition.
The CBO estimates that the annual cost of operating a 355-ship fleet would be $94 billion. Today, the 245-ship fleet costs $56 billion. Where will an extra $38 billion come from?
And it’s not just the lack of money that is a problem; it is the lack of an adequate industrial base to build the new influx of ship orders. After years of making less than 10 ships per year it cannot be expected to see a rapid increase in the number of ships under construction at one time.
No magic wand or bucket of cash will change this overnight. Building aircraft carriers and submarines requires a skilled labor force and while the shipyards today are designed to handle the current level it will take years to acquire and train the additional shipbuilders. And that process can’t even begin to start until there are more ship orders.
Another potential issue is the granting of security clearances to workers who will build the growing fleet. Reuters reported that many union members are unable to obtain the required clearances, especially as far as submarine construction is concerned. In fact, General Dynamics Electric Boat begun developing its own grass roots campaign to secure future workers. Partnering with local schools in Connecticut and Rhode Island, Electric Boat is hoping to train its future submarine workers before they even are hired.
As the Navy struggles with putting ships to sea, three critical areas exist. They are the future of the submarine fleet, the Navy’s aging cruisers and what to replace them with, and the need for a true small surface combatant.
Submarines
On its books, the Navy has 52 fast-attack submarines (SSNs) and a requirement for only 48 according to the 2012 FSA. So, the Navy is four boats ahead and should easily be meeting the needs for Navy submarines worldwide. That is not the truth, however.
One report suggests the attack submarine fleet is only meeting 40 to 45 percent of combatant commanders’ needs and with the aging fleet of Los Angeles-class not being replaced as quickly as needed the fleet is expected to fall to 41 submarines by 2029.
That number is below the 2012 assessment’s requirement of 48 and well below the 2016 version which calls for 66. The SSN was partially bolstered by the conversion of four Ohio-class SSBNs that were converted to cruise missile submarines but even those hulls are to be out of service by 2028.
The Navy is expected to continue to buy two Virginia-class attack subs per year for the foreseeable future even with construction looming for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. Initially, it was expected that construction of future Virginia-class boats would drop to one per year as Stackley explained during the appropriations hearing:
“In the past we had anticipated dropping down our submarine construction, our attack submarine construction, during years of the Columbia program procurement. In fact, we intend to, and we’re laying the groundwork, to sustain two submarine per year procurement rate – because that is our number one shortfall.”
It’s not only about getting new attack submarines. It’s about keeping those in the fleet seaworthy, and making sure trips to the shipyard are completed correctly and in a timely manner.
For instance, USS Boise has been sitting pierside at Norfolk Naval Base for 47 months—yes, almost four years!—because it has lost its dive certification. This means the submarine cannot submerge and that is a fundamental problem. Work to begin to repair Boise is not even slated to begin until January 2019 so the SSN has six more months tied to the pier. Boise is not alone however. Connecticut and Albany, two fast attack submarines, also had extended absences from the fleet. In each case, the maintenance period was expected to take approximately 24 months. Instead, it took four years for each submarine to return to the service.
The problem is only going to get worse as the backlog at
U.S Navy shipyards keep growing and SSNs continue to receive lowest priority at those shipyards.
Cruisers
Currently the Navy has 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers in its inventory. Easily the most powerful surface combatant the Navy possesses, the type introduced the AEGIS combat system to the world when the first ship of the class was commissioned in 1983.
Since then AEGIS has been the gold standard in fleet air defense and now forms an integral part of the nation’s ballistic missile defense. The first five ships of the class have all been decommissioned as the earliest Ticonderogas had older guided missile launchers rather than the current ones.
The youngest cruiser in the fleet is USS Port Royal, commissioned on July 4, 1994. With a projected 35-year service life that the Navy hopes to possibly extend for the final 11 cruisers built to 40 years, the Navy cruisers are closer to the end than the beginning—and with no replacement in sight.
Later this year, USS Bunker Hill will deploy to the Pacific on what will be its final mission. The cruiser was the first Ticonderoga built with VLS and the Navy will decommission it in 2019, closely followed by a second cruiser, USS Mobile Bay.
A huge problem for the Navy with the Ticonderoga-class was that of the current 22 ships they were all commissioned during an eight year window between late 1986 and 1994. This means that the ships will all be approaching the end of their service lives together and therefore will all need to be replaced together.
The Navy has tried to replace the Ticonderogas, but balked at the price when it was estimated to at $6 billion per copy. The Navy has done what it can to upgrade and make the cruisers available for service.
In early 2015, the Navy adopted a plan put forth by Congress to modernize its cruisers with what was called the 2/4/6 plan. This means that no more than two cruisers per year can go into extended modernization periods, those modernizations can take no longer than four years, and no more than six cruisers can be undergoing the modernization at the same time.
The oldest 11 cruisers have already received upgrades yet are quickly sailing towards the end of their designed lifespan. As the Navy looks to modernize the remaining 11 Ticonderoga cruisers, it more importantly needs to be looking for a fiscally appropriate replacement.
Small Surface Combatant
By any measurement, the Littoral Combat Ship has been a failure. With a series of well-publicized mechanical failures the LCS has fallen well short of its lofty predictions. The Navy wanted a multi-mission ship that could be tasked with one mission, return to port, and be quickly outfitted with a different warfighting module and dash off to the next hotspot ready for action.
Unfortunately, the mission modules never worked and the ships themselves are less than inspiring though the Navy did its best blame the crews for the breakdowns by issuing orders for the LCS crews to be retrained.
Originally designed to replace the ships of three classes (Perry-class frigates, Osprey-class coastal mine hunting ships and Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships) the LCS program has flopped harder than a fish on land. It has been mockingly labeled the “Little Crappy Ship” and “Little Chance of Survival” due to its deficient performance and its inability to survive an attack from even a semi-determined foe.
As a result, the Navy is finally looking to terminate production at 30 ships, though what the eventual purpose of those ships will be is open for debate. Moving forward the Navy has decided to develop a new frigate to fulfill the small surface combatant mission.
An award for design and construction contract will not even be issued until FY 2020 to allow the Navy appropriate time to evaluate what the new frigate will need as far as mission capability and integration into the fleet defense structure known as Naval Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA).
At this point, the main purpose of buying the LCS from shipyards in Wisconsin and Alabama is about keeping the industrial base ready and prepared to begin building the future frigate. Reports surfaced days after Trump’s budget request that the administration was going to ask for two LCS ships rather than the one included in the FY 18 budget. This “budget errata” is highly unusual, but illustrates the desire to keep the shipyards working until a replacement comes along. Now, the only trick is to find the extra $600 million it will take to build the second LCS now added to the budget.
Excellent and interesting post. Thank you for the information. I hadn't seen that USA today article as I was overseas. I suspected as much with Baltic states. If you'll read my previous posts on the matter regarding why NATO needs to spend more, that scenario of feeding troops in piecemeal exactly the sort of thing I was trying to explain. That being said, we shouldn't engage in appeasement. We should not give them an inch. I hope Trump does kick NATO's ass into gear for spending.
On the note of the Naval stuff, I normally meme on Jalopnik but this author seems to have sourced all of his claims very well and made a compelling case. I concentrated on aircraft related things so I wasn't aware of their rot issue.
