The U.S. Navy has released details of its immense and costly warship building program that will ensure its capability to defeat the navies of China and Russia over the next half century.
Its 30-year shipbuilding plan proposes investing more than $167 billion for 82 battle force ships and 21 unmanned surface vessels (USVs), among other ships, to expand its total surface and subsurface fleets.
The Navy aims to have a fleet eventually consisting of 355 ships by 2035. Shipbuilding budgets will jump from $27 billion in fiscal 2022 to $28.5 billion in fiscal 2023 and $38.5 billion in fiscal 2026 to attain this costly goal.
"Our updated 30-year shipbuilding plan is a credible, affordable road map for achieving maritime supremacy -- all while tightening our belts -- and sending a strong message to our adversaries like China," said Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The Navy said this massive investment would initially go to building 10 of the latest Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, 15 modern frigates, more than a dozen new submarines, and the first USVs.
It's also looking to build a future aircraft carrier that will replace the new Gerald R. Ford-class, the first of which (the USS Gerald R. Ford or CVN-78), was commissioned only in 2017. The Navy plans to build 10 carriers in this class.
It also plans to build 10 new light amphibious warships that can transport United States Marines straight up to a beach they're attacking, thereby dispensing with landing craft.
All this is part of a 30 year-long shipbuilding plan, which the White House says "represents a historic investment that would protect U.S. national security for decades to come."
The enormous shipbuilding program will see the size of the fleet hit the long-sought-after 355-ship level by 2033 compared to a low of 271 ships in 2015 and some 300 today.
By 2045, the Navy will have 403 battle force ships and 143 unmanned vessels, based on a nine-month long study conducted by the Navy.
By this year, the fleet should include 11 aircraft carriers, nine amphibious landing ships, 57 amphibious warfare ships, 74 large surface combat ships, 66 small combatant ships, 72 attack submarines, and 12 ballistic missile submarines.
An enormous increase in the numbers of robotic ships is key to reaching a 500-ship Navy and reducing the huge maintenance costs of manned ships. The plan projects spending $4.3 billion on 21 robotic ships from fiscal 2022 to 2026.
The study, however, said the much larger future Navy will also be more capable and lethal in surface combat against the People's Liberation Army Navy and the Russian Navy. The fleet expansion will leave the U.S. Navy with "a better mix of ships to prevail in great power competition and conflict compared to the current inventory," noted the study.
"It is about equipping our future force for the enduring defense of our nation," said Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist in a statement.
American shipbuilders will be hard-pressed to meet the Navy's new needs, however.
"Our industrial base is part of our national security," said a senior Navy official. "We need to partner and work with that ... base to create the capacity we need to deliver on this plan. It's going to take a lot of work; it's going to take partnership with the Department of Labor to build the workforce. But I am confident with ... the resources we've laid in as a country, we can certainly achieve this plan."
