SNA: The cost of doing business
January 15th, 2010 | leadership Life at Sea Personnel SNA Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Whether sailors are launching Tomahawks or scrubbing the deck of the carrier Nimitz, it's really expensive to run the Navy, and costs keep going up. // MC3 Kenneth Abbate / Navy
Here are some great “data points” — as they call them in the Pentagon — about the enormous amounts of money it takes to run the world’s most powerful Navy. They come from PowerPoint slides presented by Rear Adm. Philip Cullom, director of fleet readiness for the Navy Staff:
- If you’ve ever wondered where the money goes to operate a warship, here’s how the costs break down: Acquiring it costs 45 percent; its crew (or “manpower,” as Cullom wrote) costs 27 percent; fuel costs 13 percent; and maintenance costs 15 percent.
- Since 1991, the consumer price index has increased by 59 percent. Private sector port depot rates have increased in cost by 49 percent. Military manpower costs have increased by 114 percent. Energy costs have increased by 292 percent.
- Cullom’s Navy fuel bill was $1.2 billion in 2007, he said. In 2008, he paid $5.1 billion for fuel on the year.
SNA day 2: Proclamations and predictions
January 13th, 2010 | leadership Maritime operations Mine warfare SNA The Middle East Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
After the second day of speeches, press avails and panel discussions, here are a few of the voices that attendees heard today at SNA, selected completely arbitrarily, with some statements and prognostications they made about the world as it is and the world to come:
- “Optimistically, we’re looking at a 275-ship Navy — which is even smaller than today’s. It’s a troubling realization, but however we slice it, that’s the bottom line.” // U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., who said the Navy would never reach its goal of at least 313 ships unless it asked for and got more money from Congress.
- “[People think] somehow, when we’re done with Iraq and Afghanistan, we can get back to more regular forms of like-on-like warfare — a lot of that does need to be done, but the good old days aren’t coming back, and [attacks] are coming to the United States, I’m afraid, too. The test will come. It’s inevitable, and we need to be ready.” // Retired Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, who was on a panel asked to discuss the implications of “hybrid warfare” for the Navy.
- “I keep a list in my book of all the boutique ‘warfares’ that are accumulating out there.” // Rear Adm. Philip Greene, who heads the Navy’s irregular warfare office in the Pentagon.
- “That’s the difference between the Coast Guard and the Navy. We can deploy our forces fast. We radioed the captain of the cutter and said, ‘go to Port-au-Prince.’ That’s what makes us unique.” // Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, on why the lifesaving service could respond so quickly to the disaster in Haiti. Coast Guard vessels don’t need to wait for the national military chain of command to act; they can take new tasking immediately, he said.
Harvey’s warning
January 13th, 2010 | Historical leadership SNA | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC3 Matthew Williams / Navy
Scoop Deck has heard many admirals give many speeches, but none quite like the keynote address delivered Tuesday by Adm. John Harvey, head of Fleet Forces Command. Harvey is everywhere online these days, and buzz about his speech has been just as ubiquitous at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium outside Washington. He combined detailed studies about incidents in naval history with the “hybrid warfare” theme of this year’s trade show into a warning about complacency in the fleet. Be advised, it’s a long one — charge up your coffee, send your calls straight to voicemail, and take a look. Then let us know what you think in the comments.
SNA: Not if, but when
January 13th, 2010 | Coast Guard Maritime operations merchant ships Mine warfare SNA Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Retired Adm. Harry Ulrich, a former commander of Naval Forces Europe, gave a bleak prognostication during a panel discussion a few moments ago. A major maritime calamity is coming, he warned:
“If you like the way people almost blow up airplanes — how are we doing with our seaports? Does anybody in this room know? I argue they don’t. Let me tell you, it’s not a pretty picture. Just imagine, a ship blowing up over the Big Dig in Boston. What prevents that from happening? Or blowing up the San Diego Bridge at rush hour? I don’t think we’re ready for that. I know we’re not. And again, why not? Well, who does it belong to? Is it a Navy issue? No, we do 12 miles and out. Is it a Department of Homeland Security issue? Is it a Port of Savannah, or Charleston issue? Who owns it? It’ll get fixed when an incident occurs and we have a congressional investigation. That’s when it’ll get fixed.”
Ulrich also warned that since insurgents have become so adept at using roadside bombs, they should have no trouble planting what he called “maritime bombs,” i.e. mines, in American harbors.
So… ah… enjoy the rest of your day!
SNA: SecNav cracks wise
January 13th, 2010 | leadership SNA Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
With the possible exception of Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway — who, like every Marine general, is by definition a motivational speaker — no blue-or-green-team presenter uses more humor than Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
Mabus, wearing custom cuff links that bear his official flag, told the surface Navy audience this morning that he was one of them, reaching back to his days as a lieutenant junior grade aboard the cruiser Little Rock. (“I was the most dangerous thing in the entire United States Navy,” Mabus has said before: “A junior officer.”) But he told the crowd that the first audience he had addressed as secretary was the Submarine League — and knew its members thought of his ship as a “target,” which brought back memories:
“We didn’ t have any problems with submarines when I was in,” he said, “until they cheated and went underwater.”
Mabus also recalled attending a Little Rock crew reunion last year, when he asked to see his old stateroom, and couldn’t find it.
“I went down the ladder, went right to it, except it was gone. I thought at first I was lost, but I looked, and the wardroom was where it was supposed to be, the barber shop was where it was supposed to be, but my stateroom and the one next to it was gone. They had been turned into an exhibit for World War II Army uniforms. I know that stateroom wasn’t that important, but — Army uniforms?”
By the way, Mabus said he couldn’t talk about future shipbuilding, the fiscal 2011 budget or the Quadrennial Defense Review.
SNA: Updates for the record
January 12th, 2010 | leadership Mine warfare ordnance Science and technology Ships SNA Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
The last events are all done, the cocktails and finger-goods have been deployed in the exhibit areas, and Washington’s defense hacks have packed up their laptops and filed out of the building. At the conclusion of day one of the Surface Navy Association’s annual trade show, here are five of the latest dates, schedules and statistics that came up during the day’s presentations, all of which Scoop Deck found interesting for one reason or another:
1. The littoral combat ship Freedom has traveled more than 8,000 nautical miles since it was delivered last year, Lockheed Martin officials said this morning.
2. The littoral combat ship Fort Worth, now under construction in Wisconsin, is on track to be 85 percent complete by the time it’s side-launched into the shock-inducingly cold Menominee River this December, Lockheed says. The ship is scheduled for delivery to the Navy in 2012; company officials say it’s on cost and on schedule. What was that cost again? Ah, right.
3. Technicians will mount the Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System aboard a Seahawk helicopter this June and try for the first time to shoot mines in flight, said Capt. Mike Good, program manager for the littoral combat ships’ mission modules. Planners envision that an LCS in its mine-clearing mode will use a helo equipped with RAMCS to destroy the mines first spotted by its off-board robots — the helicopter will hover over the mine, even if it’s deep underwater, and then ZAP! WHOOSH! POW! It will shoot a supercavitating projectile that burns through the ocean and strikes the mine, destroying it or detonating it. Good said the RAMCS gun has shot and blown up mines in tests, and now the Navy needs to experiment doing that from a helicopter.
4. Naval Surface Forces recently graduated the 800th student from its waterfront surface-warfare training course, said SurFor commander Vice Adm. D.C. Curtis. He was given a pair of binoculars and told to use them “to look into the future.”
5. There are 27 women throughout SurFor who are commanding officers or who have been screened for command, Curtis said. If he had been appearing at the show a few years ago, he said, “you couldn’t say that.”
SNA: Unicorns, leprechauns and the CG(X) AoA
January 12th, 2010 | Ballistic missile defense leadership Science and technology SNA Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Within certain very narrow circles in Washington, it’s amazing how much influence is wielded by pieces of paper. The budget, the 30-year shipbuilding plan, the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Ballistic Missile Defense Review — although these would all sound to most Americans like a buncha nonsense (and they might not be wrong) the right documents still get select pulses going. So it is with the most elusive wraith of them all — the Flying Dutchman of Pentagon deliberation — the specter on the moor known as the analysis of alternatives for the next-generation cruiser, aka the CG(X) AoA.
People tell fantastic tales about it. It’s supposed to be 500 pages long! But like Brigadoon, word of the CG(X) AoA materializes only when the tides and the stars are right, as was apparently the case Tuesday for Rear Adm. Frank Pandolfe, who is in charge of surface warfare for the Navy Staff in the Pentagon. It was he, in response to a question, who mentioned that he couldn’t talk about future ship developments, but in doing so, he mentioned that the CG(X) AoA — gasp! were your ears playing tricks? — was finished. That itself isn’t new, but when Scoop Deck had an opportunity to ask Pandolfe whether this phantom would ever step into the light of day, here’s what he said:
“The decisions that flow from the CG(X) AoA will unfold in time. I can’t talk to them right now. I can talk to the [fiscal year] 10 budget, but I can’t talk to future shipbuilding plans or the [fiscal year] 11 submission. In due time we can have this conversation, but I can’t commit to it today. I can’t say what [the Defense Department] will do. The work is done. It has been submitted. It will be acted upon. The path that [the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates] takes to unveil that decision and to share the decision-making process, I can’t discuss. I don’t have that information.”
SNA: Sometimes, it takes a disaster
January 12th, 2010 | leadership Science and technology Ships SNA Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
A recurrent theme in today’s talks has been the Navy’s need to strike the right balance between its traditional, fightin’-the-Northern-Fleet-on-the-high-seas self-conception and today’s missions, fightin’ illiterate guys in dhows. What will it take, presenters and questioners keep asking, to get Big Navy to thread the metaphorical needle and be ready for the latest buzzword: “hybrid warfare?”
Rear Adm. Frank Pandolfe, the head of surface warfare on the Navy Staff, gave a frank answer: A catastrophe.
“A cataclysmic event,” he said. “9/11 shocked us out of complacency. It forced us to adapt. But it is not the ideal way to meet that goal.”
Also, have you been wondering about the Navy’s future shipbuilding plans? Well, keep wondering. A questioner asked about what direction the Navy could take now that it’s only building three Zumwalt-class destroyers and the advanced super-warship known as CG(X) has faded beyond the horizon.
“Unfortunately, I can’t talk about the future surface combatant,” Pandolfe said. “The ’11 budget is not done yet, and the shipbuilding plan that goes with it is not done yet, so we cannot speculate on that. The CG(X) [analysis of alternatives] is complete — there will be decisions coming. I’m not at liberty to discuss them today. I hope you understand.”
SNA: When the admiral doesn’t care to answer
January 12th, 2010 | Carriers leadership SNA | Posted by Phil Ewing
Adm. John Harvey, head of Fleet Forces Command, had just wrapped up a sweeping, big-picture assessment of the Navy’s need to become innovative, adaptive and forward-leaning in the face of the dangers of the 21st century. Reaching back to incidents from the Civil War and World War II, to times when the Navy did and did not innovate, respectively, Harvey said the force must concentrate on determining how to apply the fleet it has today to the problems it will face tomorrow.
Citing an official report on the Navy’s defeat in the Battle of Savo Island, Harvey read a quotation that summed up what he wants the Navy to avoid: “Most of our officers and men … felt themselves the sure victors in any encounter — they had a fatal lethargy of the mind, which induced a confidence without readiness and a routine acceptance of outworn, peacetime standards of conduct.”
He also revealed what happens when top decision-makers anticipate they’ll be asked questions they don’t want to answer. When a crew member from the carrier Theodore Roosevelt asked about the potential for a flattop to move from Naval Station Norfolk, Va., to Naval Station Mayport, Fla., Harvey produced a slip of paper.
“I’ve got gouge here — I thought this could come up – oh no, this is for the InSurv question — it says ‘tell a very funny joke, wave and say thank you.’”
But Harvey gave an answer anyway.
SNA: Fun facts about a giant building
January 12th, 2010 | leadership Science and technology SNA | Posted by Phil Ewing
One of the more controversial elements of SNA every year is Naval Sea Systems Command’s presentation booth. When it comes to buildin’ ships, NavSea is obviously a Big Deal, and this year it has a lineup of heavy hitters who are scheduled to give talks about what they do — including the big man, Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, who runs the whole shootin’ match.
The motto on the main NavSea display: “Enabling a more potent force than what’s on the surface.”
And yet, the booth is located on one of the show floors, amidst the throngs of exhibitors and visitors, in a doorway that connects one display area to another. So when a NavSea VIP gives a talk at the booth, visitors tend to clot around and block people from going by, which can set trade show tempers on edge.
That was the scene this morning when Capt. Mike Good, NavSea’s program manager for the littoral combat ships’ mission modules, gave his brief. As he strained to talk over the din, many of his PowerPoint items were familiar to readers of the Deck, but he did have some interesting, new-sounding bullet points.
Did you know that the giant central building at the new LCS mission module support facility at Naval Surface Warface Center Port Hueneme was originally built for the Space Shuttle program? It was! It’s a former Air Force facility with two giant ceiling cranes, which will be helpful for moving around LCS module equipment, Good said, and it’s got lots of connections to move modules around the world.
Part of the Navy’s concept for LCS is that ships can change out their accessories in only a day or so, and the Port Hueneme module center is set up to support that. It’s on a deep-water port, so Military Sealift Command ships could pull in and take aboard LCS modules for transit across the Pacific, Good said, and it’s got rail and road links so that the gear could be shipped to points across the U.S. It’s also near Naval Air Station Point Mugu, Calif., Good said, so if the Navy needed to fly LCS modules from their headquarters, the former NASA building is well situated.