How to build a fleet told by the man who built the Reagan Navy, the most powerful and successful navy's in the past 42 years. John F. Lehman Jr., President Reagan's Secretary of the Navy, probably one of the best Secretary of the Navy in the history of the U.S. Navy. I hope President Trump reads this. Reagan's Secretary of the Navy: How To Build a Fleet John F. Lehman Jr. served as Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration from 1981-1987. In this role, he advocated for the 600-ship Navy and went on to lead one of the most significant naval buildups in American history. In this interview, he recalls the critical elements that drove the Reagan-era naval buildup and what lessons can be applied to the new administrations effort to build a 350-ship Navy. In building up to the 600-ship Navy, what role did strategy play in informing budget? How did the 1980s Maritime Strategy help justify a naval buildup when many powerful voices argued against it? Strategy played an essential role arguably THE essential role. I spent years thinking about naval strategy before I became Secretary, sitting at the feet of masters, and I was able to hit the ground running to both promulgate and also implement that strategy through exercises at sea, within the context of President Reagans own well-thought-out goals, from the first day I was in office. I was blessed by CNOs who got strategy especially Admirals Tom Hayward and Jim Watkins and who developed and maintained a superb set of institutions and strategically-minded officers that were able to explain and carry out our Maritime Strategy from the get-go whether at sea; in Washington; in Newport, Annapolis and Monterey; and in Navy and joint commands all around the world. We were able to counter those powerful voices arguing against it time and time again. How did you build a strong relationship with Congress and what arguments sustained their support? We had many strong and experienced Navy supporters in Congress. First among them were Senators John Stennis, Scoop Jackson, John Tower and former SecNav John Warner. Our message to Congress was loud and clear: We had a disciplined logical strategy that would lead to American maritime superiority and success at sea. To carry out that strategy successfully, we needed a 600-ship Navy. And, recognizing that such a navy would undeniably cost money, we committed ourselves to fundamentally change Navy weapons development and procurement, bringing costs down dramatically. We did this by restoring authority and accountability to officials, not to bureaucracies. Gold-plating and a change order culture were ended, which enabled fixed-price contracts and annual production competition. Navy shipbuilding actually had a net cost underrun of $8 billion during the Reagan years, the first and only time in history. Congress saw that we kept our word and did what we said we would, and gave us its support year after year. The new administration is seeking to build a 350-ship Navy. What will it take to achieve this goal sooner than later, and should this buildup be used as an opportunity to augment existing force structure? First, it will take immediate enunciation of a clear, compelling strategy. Next, as the fleet shrank from 594 to the current 274, the Defense bureaucracy has grown. Bureaucratic bloat must be slashed immediately through early retirement, buyouts, and natural attrition. Next, the kind of line management accountability that marked the Reagan years can end constant change orders and enable fixed price competition. In addition to these deep reforms it will of course take an immediate infusion of more money. And it will take an immediate refocus on drastically ramping up competition within the defense industry. With regard to force structure, the Navy desperately needs frigates. We do not need more LCSs nor can they be modified to fill the frigate requirement. We do not need to have a wholly new design as there are several excellent designs in European navies that could be built in American yards with the latest American technology. Indeed, the now-retired Perry class could easily be built again with the newest weapons and technology. Naval aviation needs more and longer range strike aircraft. The advanced design F-18 can help fill this need with a program to procure a mix of both F-35s and advanced F-18s with annual buys, effectively competing the two aircraft for the optimum lowest cost mix. The Navy faces multiple competing demands for resources including deferred maintenance that is hampering readiness and insatiable combatant commander demand for greater capacity. Additionally, the rapid rate of technological change is opening up numerous possibilities for new capabilities. Where should the Navy prioritize its investments to ensure credible combat power going forward? There are some who argue that the dismal state of readiness must be dealt with first, and then the procurement of a larger fleet after. That would be a mistake. The priority is to achieve balance. Readiness and sustainability must be dealt with simultaneously with embarking on procuring the necessary new ships and aircraft. In the 1980s I was a vocal proponent of 15 carrier battle groups. But I was no less an advocate for 100 attack submarines. The Navy defends the nation across the entire spectrum of conflictfrom what my old shipmate CNO Jim Watkins called the violent peace, through deterring and controlling crises around the world, to fighting and winning wars and deterring nuclear holocaust. Thats a tall order, but a necessary one. The Navy needs to be able to pummel targets ashore, land Marines and SEALs, sink submarines and surface ships, knock sophisticated airplanes and missiles out of the sky by the dozens, lay and neutralize mines, get the Armys and Air Forces gear to the fight, and use both hard kill and soft kill power to do all that, as required. The force structure needed to perform successfully at sea across that range of operations is extraordinarily varied, and must be continually balanced and adjusted, as we did with our 600-ship force goal all through the 1980s. It can be done, and the new administration and Congress must do it. Your time as SECNAV involved hard-fought battles with industry to ensure better and more cost-effective shipbuilding. How can the Navy better work with industry to facilitate a buildup and improve acquisition? The Navy must get its procurement system under control. It must end gold plating and constant design changes. Industry cannot sign fixed price contracts unless the Navy has completed detailed design and frozen the requirements. When that is done the disciplines of competition and innovation can return. Shipbuilders can make good profits by performance, cost reduction, and innovation in such a disciplined environment. Of the possible operational contingencies the Navy faces around the world, which poses the greatest challenge to the Navy in successfully defending American allies and interests? Would that it were so simple. The Navy is the nations premier flexible and global force. It must be able to deter disturbers of the peace like Islamist terror, and potentially the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, and North Koreans, and to destroy their forces if deterrence fails. The Navy must meet them toe-to-toe all around the world wherever they stir up trouble. True, during the Cold War, we focused and appropriately so on pushing Soviet naval bears back into their cages in the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, the Med, and the Arctic. But we also had to be prepared and were prepared to turn on a dime to carry out President Reagans orders in and off Lebanon, in Grenada and off Nicaragua, over Gaddafis Libya, in the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, and all over the world against Middle Eastern hijackers and terrorists. Simultaneously we were engaged in saving hundreds of lives rescuing Vietnamese boat people in the South China Sea, and performing many other humanitarian missions around the globe. What strategic and operational concepts would best apply naval power to todays threats and adversaries? To reestablish maritime supremacy and Command of the Seas. The size, deployments, and capabilities of the U.S. Navy are indicative of Americas chosen role in world affairs. What would it mean for the Navy if the incoming administration adopts isolationism? Despite occasional tweets to the contrary, an administration that has sworn to protect its citizens and businesses everywhere, renegotiate trade deals, and destroy ISIS cannot be characterized as adopting isolationism. Such a policy is unthinkable today. 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson tried to get by with isolationism on the cheap, invested in a fleet of low-end gun-boats of limited value, and set his successor James Madison up to fight the War of 1812 to no better than a draw. A little more than 100 years later, a succession of administrations adopted isolationism as their policy and disarmed their by-then world-class Navy through bad international treaties and worse budgets. As a result, the Navy struggled during the first two years of World War II before hitting its stride and surging to victory (read Jim Hornfischers and Ian Tolls recent books for how we did that). Threats to the nation wont go away just because the country may turn inward. They will just try to push the country back across the oceans and then keep pushing ashore. American naval supremacy will guarantee that cant happen. What final advice do you have for the next Secretary of the Navy? Have a sound strategy, and stick to it. Have a robust but achievable force goal. Cut costs and increase competition everywhere you can. Balance and adjust the fleet among all its competing missions, regions, and levels of conflict, and above all, ensure the capability to deter or defeat the most dangerous potential enemies of our nation. The new secretary must immediately go on the offensive against bureaucratic bloat, against sloppy contracting, against gold-plating and for fixed price production competition, and technological innovation through block upgrades. While engaged in this righteous offensive he must constantly explain and articulate his strategy, his objectives, and his vision to Congress, to the Sailors and Marines, and to the American people. The nation elected a new President with a set of clear and purposeful goals. The Secretary of the Navy must ensure that under his charge the nations Navy becomes stronger and readier to carry them out. continue -> http://maritime-executive.com/features/reagans-secretary-of-the-navy-how-to-build-a-fleet
What threats do we have in the world that justify an attack sub fleet of 100 boats? Or 15 carrier groups when the next major power in terms of carriers have 2 and they are a US ally? This article was written by someone who seems to think the Soviet Red Banner fleet is going to come charging out of the Barents Sea behind a wall of Sunburn missiles.
Reagan's Navy was built to sink the Soviet Navy. When Reagan became POTUS we had a hollow military force and the U.S. Navy recognized that the U.S. Navy couldn't defeat the Soviet Navy at sea. John F. Lehman had to rebuild the U.S. Navy and the goal was a 600 ship navy. I served in the corps ten years earlier when we had a 900 ship navy. 15 carrier because of the "Rule of Three" 1/3 of the navy's ships are suppose to be at sea in their assigned Area of Responsibility (AOR) each assigned to a number fleet. 7th Fleet, 5th Fleet, 6th Fleet, etc. There are five AOR's so it would take 15 carriers and it's escorts to be on station in their assigned AOR 24/7. Pretty sure I have read a John F. Lehman article in the USNI "Proceedings" acknowledging that 100 attack subs are weapons of war and have little deterrence or usefulness during peace time. They have little value in geopolitics and gun boat diplomacy. But during war time that's a different story. During WW ll in the Pacific theatre of war U.S. Navy submarines sank more enemy ships and sank more tonnage than all of the navy's 112 aircraft carries aircraft had. FYI: By 1945 the U.S. Navy had 112 aircraft carriers and a 6,768 ship navy. -> https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html John Lehman is right on, he's saying the same thing about the navy's Little Crappy Ships (LCS) that I was saying eight years ago when the LCS's were still in the shipyards under construction. Cancel the contracts and stop building wannabe warships that can't fight and survive in combat. How did Sec. of Navy Lehman was able to build the Reagan Navy just shy of eight ships meeting that 600 ship navy ? The high-low concept just like what the Air Force did when building the Reagan Air Force. 1/2 high end F-15's and 1/2 low end F-16's. The Reagan Navy low end was the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates. Not a pretty looking warship and not really heavily armed and it only had one freaking screw. (propeller) !!! But probably the last U.S. Navy warship built to be able to take hits and stay afloat and continue to fight. It took more than a few anti ship missiles and torpedoes to sink this Perry class frigate last year. -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzn5L-82GdE Todays warships are no longer built to take hits and keep on fighting. They are dependent on CIW technology or they get sunk. The best destroyer ever built and gone to war was the U.S. Navy Fletcher class destroyer. Faster and more range than todays Arleigh Burke's and they were able to take hits from Japanese gun cruisers and stayed afloat and kept on fighting. They were able to take a beating and keep fighting. http://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/ http://forum.worldofwarships.com/in...-the-american-fleet-fletcher-class-destroyer/ Four or so years ago off of Pt. Mugu NAS in SoCal a small UAV target drone went out of control, smaller than a Cessna 150 and no warhead and crashed into the superstructure of a Ticonderoga cruiser and put the cruiser out of commission for six months.
And the Fletcher would get murdered at beyond visual range by anti-ship missiles today. Why do you insist on ignoring the invention of anti-ship missiles? There is no threat in existence today on anything like the scale of the Soviet navy. There is no threat that justifies a 600 ship navy, 15 aircraft carriers, or 100 attack submarines. Most major players like China and Russia have navies that almost entirely consist of corvettes and missile boats. We don't need 5 fleets with active carriers around the clock. A carrier in the Pacific, one in the North Atlantic (and that's optional given French and British carriers), and one in the Indian Ocean that can surge to either the Gulf or the Red Sea is more than enough. Everywhere else we have either land bases or no threats worthy of needing an aircraft carrier. You ask how did Reagan build a 600 ship navy? He did it by recommissioning old ships and by delaying the decommissioning of others that should have been decommissioned. It was a good idea at the time but we have no need for such a move today.
The Fletcher's had armor plating, todays warships have no armor at all. Did you watch the video I provided a link to ? How many anti ship missiles hit that Perry class frigate ? Did you count them ? The ship was still afloat. It was the two torpedoes launched by submarines that finally sank the frigate after being hit by numerous anti ship missiles and bombs. Navy Sinks Former Frigate USS Reuben James in Test of New Supersonic Anti-Surface Missile -> https://news.usni.org/2016/03/07/na...n-test-of-new-supersonic-anti-surface-missile US Navy spend 12 HOURS trying to sink retired warship by hammering it with missiles -> Video taken from a helicopter shows Australian frigate HMAS Ballarat and American cruiser USS Princeton firing harpoon missiles at the vessel. US aircraft also joined in with US Navy F/A-18 Hornets dropping a 2,000-pound Mk. 84 bomb and a US Air Force B-52 bomber also bombarding it a GBU-12 Paveway laser guided 500-pound bomb. A submarine from the US also joined in striking the target with Mk.48 torpedoes from below the waves. The USS Thach finally sank at 7.25pm on July 14, in waters around 15,000 feet deep. -> http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/691337/us-navy-sink-retired-war-ship-missile-test The decommissioned warship was hit with everything but the kitchen sink during a live fire exercise. Thach was retired from service in 2013 and then sunk Thursday off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. Stripped of weapons, ammunition, fuel and pollutants, the ship was towed into water two to three miles deep and bombarded from the air, sea, and under the sea. Thach absorbed an enormous amount of punishment, starting with a Harpoon missile launched by a South Korean submarine, the ROKS Lee Eokgi. Next, the Australian frigate HMAS Ballarat launched another Harpoon, and an Australian SH-60S helicopter shot it with a Hellfire missile. U.S. maritime patrol aircraft then hit it with Harpoon and Maverick missiles. But Thach wasn't done. The cruiser USS Princeton hit it with yet another Harpoon missile, and an American SH-60S Navy chopper hit it with more Hellfires. US Navy F/A-18 Hornets lobbed a 2,000 pound Mk. 84 bomb at it, and a US Air Force B-52 bomber dropped a GBU-12 Paveway laser guided 500 pound bomb on it. A U.S. Navy submarine got into the action, striking it with a Mk. 48 torpedo. Thach was hit with nearly five thousand pounds of high explosive, plus unspent rocket fuel and yet held out for nearly 12 hours. How did it survive so long? Good warship design, which has improved considerably since the days of World War II.
It's all ready over 475 ships in the Navy. 177 new ships have to be Trump's plan of view before US election starting. So far Trump's new plans are 78 new ships. So far 96,000 Marines east Coast. So far 110,000 Marines western Coast. Rest are sailors with combat boats the big with carriers of 10 pieces.
That target ship didn't have a combat load of ordinance on board or a bunker full of fuel. And how many times are you going to repeat this idiotic notion that a ship has to be sunk for it to be killed? A mission kill that renders the ship combat ineffective is just as much a kill as sinking it. How well do you think a Fletcher would hold up to an anti-ship missile setting off its torpedoes or exploding one of its 5-inch magazines?
Tens hundreds of ships were knocked out of commission during WW ll and they either limped back or were towed to a shipyard and repaired and went back into combat. The only way to sink a ship is by breaking it's keel or by flooding. During fighting a fire on a ship you have pumps pumping water on the fire and pumps removing that water returning to sea or the weight of the water will sink the ship. The Perry class frigate target ship had no fuel or munition on board but also no crew so no battle damage control took place on the target ship. What makes the U.S. Navy stand out from all other navies ? The U.S. Navy perfected battle damage control procedures in the Pacific during WW ll. American civilian military historians credit the aircraft carrier for winning the war in the Pacific. Naval historians credit the U.S. Navy submarines for winning the war in the Pacific. British military historians credit U.S. Navy battle damage control procedures for winning the war in the Pacific. FYI: 5"/38 guns don't use a powder bag, it's a shell round like rifle cartridge. No powder magazines on a Fletcher class DD. If the ammunition magazine is hit, the magazine is flooded with water. BDC-SOP. Did you see in the video where a missile entered the starboard size and passed through the ship and exited out of the port side and continued a few hundred yards before hitting the water ? Cant's tell if it was a anti ship Harpoon or a anti ship Maverick if a Hellfire missile. A Hellfire !!! Why would they shooting little Hellfire missile at a ship ???
Typo Ole Ole ? The current U.S. Navy is at 275 ships, the smallest size since 1917 just before America entered WW l. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html
That would require 9 carriers and it's escorts to have a Carrier Strike Group in those three AOR's 24/7. The navy term "surge...surging isn't what one would think. The average speed of a Carrier Strike Group or Carrier Battle Group in 14 knots. The faster a CSG travels the faster it's escorts suck up their fuel and have to be refueled. But in an emergency, 20 to 22 knts are capable getting frtom the east coast to ther Med without refueling. The link deals with CBG is from 1993. -> http://www.gao.gov/assets/160/152948.pdf Those Arliegh Burke's gas turbines are pretty fuel efficient at high speeds.
Damage control isn't going to help much when half you crew is killed outright from the explosion setting off a major part of your ordinance or fuel. It doesn't matter if a ship can be towed back to port and maybe see action again after years of dry dock work if the conflict is over a couple weeks later. A mission kill is just as much a kill as sinking a ship.
It was also not operating with CIWS, RAM, or any other defensive systems to defeat missiles before they even hit.
That all depends. During the first Gulf War a Nimitz CBG departed port for the Persian Gulf exactly on the same day an Iowa class battleship surface warfare group departed for the Persian Gulf. The battleship entered the Persian Gulf three days earlier than the CBG. Why ??? There was a typhoon and the CBG had to go around the storm while the battleship plowed right through the storm. If a CSF is being surged to some hot spot in the world what are you looking at, covering 525 miles per day at 22 knots. If the carrier is conducting flight operations while in transit the carrier has to be refueled with JP fuel every three days. The escorts would also or should be refueled before entering the AOR.
And at least 2 ships on that list can be ignored right away. The USS Constitution and the USS Pueblo. Remove those ans only count the combat ships (USS), and you get a grand total of... 232 The vast majority of the fleet are various support ships, with a prefix of USNS, MV, RV, and the like. Civilian crews, no combat capabilities (other than .50 machine guns and defensive systems like CIWS). And a large number of those ships date to the Reagan era buildup. Many are already starting to hit the end of their service life. How is this for irony? In 1988-1989 I spent time on 2 different Amphib ships. The old rust bucket USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2) and the brand spanking new USS Whidbey Island (LSD-41). At the time we considered the Iwo to be a hunk of junk. 27 years old, and it showed it. Meanwhile the Whidbey was almost brand new, only 3 years old. Well, guess what? The Iwo is now out of service, and the Whidbey is 32 years old. 5 years older than the Iwo was when I was on it. A great amount of our equipment, from ships and planes to trucks and weapons are literally older than those that are using them. At what point do we plan on retiring them, and start building their replacements?
What excuses? I see, if you do not like what somebody says (and even if they back it up with stats and figures), you simply insult. Goodbye.
I also was on the USS Iwo Jima in 1969. I was a FNG and have only been in-country for a few weeks. Was TAD to BLT 1/26 and they flew us out to the Iwo Jima for Operation Bold Pursuit one of the last amphibious assaults to be conducted in the Vietnam War. I think Operation Defiance Stand was the last amphibious assault of the war and I also participated in that one. At the time the Iwo Jima was one of the newer LPH's unlike all of the other LPH's were all WW ll Essex class aircraft carriers. Also been on the Essex class LPH's USS Princeton and Valley Forge. I still remember the racks in the berthing compartments were four high. Can't remember if the racks on the Iwo Jima were three high or four high ? Do you remember ? The Navy's chow was pretty good, I remember that.
The berthing in the Marine hold was 4 high, I imagine it was 2 or 3 in the crew berthing. On the Whidbey it was 2 high, with a platoon and a half in each quarters, not a company and a half like on the Iwo. A lot more room to move around in.
