SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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??–???
2005
[H.A.S.C. No. 109–8]
HEARINGS
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006—H.R. 1815
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
PROJECTION FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE HEARINGS
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ON
TITLE I—PROCUREMENT
TITLE II—RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION
(H.R. 1815)
HEARINGS HELD
MARCH 2, 10, 15, 2005
PROJECTION FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland, Chairman
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
THELMA DRAKE, Virginia
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
KEN CALVERT, California
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GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
DAN BOREN, Oklahoma
Robert Lautrup, Professional Staff Member
Jean D. Reed, Professional Staff Member
John Sullivan, Professional Staff Member
Claire E. Dunne, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2005
HEARING:
Wednesday, March 2, 2005, Fiscal Year 2005 National Defense Authorization Act—Navy Research and Development: Programs in Support of the War on Terrorism, Naval Transformation, and Future Navy Capabilities
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APPENDIX:
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2005
FISCAL YEAR 2005 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—NAVY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: PROGRAMS IN SUPPORT OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM, NAVAL TRANSFORMATION, AND FUTURE NAVY CAPABILITIES
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe, a Representative from Maryland, Chairman, Projection Forces Subcommittee
Taylor, Hon. Gene, a Representative from Mississippi, Ranking Member, Projection Forces Subcommittee
WITNESSES
Cohen, Rear Adm. Jay M., Chief of Naval Research
Crenshaw, Vice Adm. Lewis W., Jr., Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Resources, Requirements and Assessments
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Magnus, Lt. Gen. Robert, Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources, U.S. Marine Corps
Mattis, Lt. Gen. James N., Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command
Sestak, Vice Adm. Joseph A., Jr., Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Requirements and Programs
Young, Hon. John J., Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe
Young, Hon. John J., Jr., joint with Vice Adm. Joseph A. Sestak, Jr., Vice Adm. Lewis W. Crenshaw, Jr., Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, and Rear Adm. Jay M. Cohen
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Documents submitted can be viewed in the hard copy.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers can be viewed in the hard copy.]
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Mr. Bartlett
Mr. Hostettler
Mr. Langevin
Mr. Simmons
FISCAL YEAR 2006 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—NAVY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: PROGRAMS IN SUPPORT OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM, NAVAL TRANSFORMATION, AND FUTURE NAVY CAPABILITIES
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Projection Forces Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 2, 2005.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2 p.m., in room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Roscoe Bartlett (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROSCOE BARTLETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MARYLAND, CHAIRMAN, PROJECTION FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. BARTLETT. We will call our subcommittee hearing to order.
I first want to make a recognition of how tenuous our lives can be here. I just learned that one of my classmates when I came in 1992—we started to serve in 1993—Tillie Fowler, I learned yesterday that she had had a fairly massive cerebral hemorrhage. And this morning the news was that she was grave. And just a few hours ago she passed away.
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Tillie was not just a member of my class. She was a member of the Armed Services Committee. She had made a term limit commitment, not legally binding, but she was a very moral person and she honored that when there was no reason she needed to because her constituents were going to send her back. But she just felt obligated to that commitment.
She demonstrated that there was life after Congress, because she was just as active, and just as committed, and just as productive in several roles that she played on commissions, and studies, and so forth after she was in Congress. It is times like these that you reflect on who you are, and where you are, and how little time you may have to make the things happen in this world that you would like to make happen.
And so I just wanted to recognize how much we will miss Tillie Fowler and how great her contribution was, not just to this committee, but to the country that she served. Our prayers go out to her family, her husband, and her two daughters. Tillie will be missed, not just by her family, but from her bigger extended family here in Washington.
If we could have just an appropriate moment of silence for Tillie, I think it would be the right thing to do.
Thank you.
This afternoon, the Projection Forces Subcommittee meets to receive testimony from the Department of the Navy witnesses on the president's fiscal year 2006 budget request for the Navy and Marine Corps projection forces.
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Our witnesses include the Honorable John J. Young, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition; Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Jr., Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Requirements and Programs; Vice Admiral Lewis W. Crenshaw, Jr., Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Resources, Requirements and Assessments; Lieutenant General Robert Magnus, United States Marine Corps, Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources; Lieutenant General James D. Mattis, Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command; and Rear Admiral Jay M. Cohen, Chief of Naval Research.
Gentlemen, welcome.
In today's hearing, we will examine the Department of the Navy's research and development programs and support for naval transformation and future naval capabilities. Other than to set a framework for discussion of the Navy's research and development programs, we will not focus on the Navy's ship construction program. That is the subject for next week's hearing.
Rather, we will hear from our witnesses about Navy and Marine Corps transformation about those critical research and development programs that support today's Navy and Marine Corps and will provide new capabilities for tomorrow's sea services.
We will hear about the role of the Department of the Navy's science and technology program and how it provides advanced technologies for insertion and naval systems and for future capabilities for the Navy and the Marine Corps.
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We will discuss the Navy's program for development of the DD(X) advanced multi-mission destroyer and the LCS littoral combat ship, and for development of other critical and transformational capabilities. And we will hear from our witnesses about the Navy's critical core competencies that are necessary for successful operations in the littoral regions of the world, anti submarine warfare, ship self-defense and mine countermeasures.
Today, units of the Navy and the Marine Corps are deployed all over the world as they answer our nation's call in the global war on terrorism and in the establishment of stability and security in the world's trouble spots. From combat operations in Iraq to tsunami relief efforts in Indonesia, our sailors and Marines in the Navy and Marine Corps in which they serve have repeatedly proven themselves ready to meet the tasks and challenges to which they have been called in the defense of freedom and our liberties.
Our purpose today is to ensure that for fiscal year 2006 and beyond the Nation continues to provide the Navy and Marine Corps the resources they need to achieve the right balance of force structure and capabilities to meet today's challenges and the new challenges that surely lie ahead. We owe it to our sailors and Marines who defend freedom around the world to ensure that they have the ships, planes, combat vehicles, weapons, equipment, training systems and technologies that will ensure success on the battlefield in which they may fight, at sea, in the air, or on the land.
Secretary Young, Admiral Sestak, Admiral Crenshaw, General Magnus, General Mattis, Admiral Cohen, I am pleased to welcome you to today's hearing. By the end of today's hearing, my objective is that the members of the subcommittee will have a clear understanding of what each of you believes to be the most critical issues in the Navy's research and development programs, those funded in the fiscal year 2006 budget request as well as those critical issues for which funding is not available. I look forward to your testimony and to the discussions that will follow.
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Let me now recognize my colleague and friend, the Ranking Member, Mr. Taylor from Mississippi.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bartlett can be viewed in the hard copy.]
STATEMENT OF HON. GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSISSIPPI, RANKING MEMBER, PROJECTION FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to join you in expressing our profound loss of Ms. Tillie Fowler. She was a great addition not only to this full committee but to this subcommittee and certainly continued the good work by her predecessor, the late Charlie Bennett, in this committee.
Mr. Chairman, I hope there is a couple of things we can talk about today. Number one, I want to thank Secretary Young for sharing his time with me yesterday.
I think it is important that I say publicly what I said privately. I think it is a bad decision, as far as the future of our nation is concerned, to reduce the purchase of DD(X)'s. I think it is an even worse decision to try to sole-source that contract. I think we will—I see nothing good coming of that.
I think we would find ourselves in a position where a future secretary of the Navy would be coming to us and saying, ''Well, we are—overseas because we are down to a single sole supplier and I cannot get any competition and therefore save any money.''
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I share your concern, and I know several members of our subcommittee went to look at some foreign yards to see what we need to be doing to bring our industrial base to the point where it needs to be. But I do not think getting rid of the industrial base is what we need to do.
I was delighted to hear both the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) and Secretary England remark that they were willing to look at multi-year funding for ships. I would hope that Secretary Young would further elaborate what the Navy is willing to do along those lines.
But, again, I do want to welcome our very distinguished guests here today. The purpose of this hearing is to let them talk, not me. So I am looking forward to hearing what they have to say.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
I came to the Congress—I did not start serving until I was 66, so obviously I had a former life. And one of the things I did was to work 18 years for the military, most of those for the Navy. I began that career at Pensacola, Florida, at the Naval School of Aviation. And I continued that at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. And during those 8 years, I was awarded 19 military patents.
I make that observation because I have a concern about a part of our budget. And that is I see very serious cuts, proposed cuts, in basic research. And, you know, you might do that for a year and get away with it. But that is exactly the equivalent of the farmer eating his seed corn.
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Agriculture is still the biggest industry in my district, and I do not think I have any farmers who are dumb enough to eat their seed corn. And I hope that we will not do that here.
So I just wanted to express my concern that there are very significant proposed cuts in basic research and I think that long term, if we do not sow the seeds today, there will not be anything to reap tomorrow. Today's basic research is tomorrow's engineering applications. And I just have a concern that, no matter how austere our budget is, that you have got to be protecting that part of it because there may be no meaningful tomorrow if we do not sow those seeds today.
Gentleman, thank you all very much for coming.
And, Mr. Secretary, proceed as you wish.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN J. YOUNG, JR., ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY FOR RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND ACQUISITION
Secretary YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Taylor, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is a privilege to appear before the Projection Forces Subcommittee to discuss Navy and Marine Corps research and development programs in support of the global war on terrorism, future naval capabilities and the fiscal year 2006 budget request. Thank you for your personal and the committee's outstanding support for Navy and Marine Corps programs.
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In multiple theaters throughout the world, your Navy and Marine Corps team is prosecuting the global war on terror in a wide range of operations. From pursuit of hostile forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to providing humanitarian relief after the tsunami, your naval team has executed superbly.
In each of these operations, naval research, training and capabilities provided a unique demonstration to the world of the immense and timely capabilities of the United States Navy and Marine Corps team and what it provides our nation.
As you know, this committee and Congress have been instrumental in helping this Department obtain these results. The fiscal year 2006 request reflects the investments that will most improve our war-fighting capability by developing and investing in future sea-based and expeditionary tools for the Navy and Marine Corps.
There are many programs and initiatives, as you listed, Mr. Chairman, that merit consideration within this budget. In the interest of time, I will only highlight a few of the recent actions undertaken by the Department to deliver effective combat capability for sailors and Marines.
Through the work of the Marine Corps and the leadership of Secretary England, when I MEF, the First Marine Expeditionary Force, returned to Iraq in March 2004—and General Mattis was a participant in that—every Marine Corps and Navy vehicle that was used outside of unsecured areas had some level of armor protection and every helicopter had advanced survivability equipment.
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To build on this momentum, Secretary England directed the establishment of a formalized process, Operation Respond, to rapidly meet requirements generated from deployed Marines. Through Respond, within the limits of funding rules, the department delivered ballistic goggles, enhanced body armor, IED (improvised explosive device) jammers, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other capabilities requested by Marines and sailors.
Beyond the urgent support for our deployed forces, the Department continued to reach for efficient and joint execution of programs across the enterprise. The Navy led an effort that merged the Joint Tactical Radio Systems Clusters three and four to ensure that DOD gets an interoperable radio.
Teamed with the Missile Defense Agency, we implemented AEGIS tracking functions for ballistic missile defense and recently completed the fifth successful SM–3 intercept of a ballistic target.
The RDA (Research, Development, and Acquisition) team worked with the Navy and Marine Corps leadership to restructure LHA(R) from a plug-plus to an aviation variant using the proven LHD hull to save over $1.1 billion, which was an effort supported by the committee specifically.
The acquisition team recommended specific JSF, Joint Strike Fighter, design, ground rule and requirements changes with restored STOVL viability and implemented a JSF independent review team to help that program make progress.
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We assumed 305,000 seats for the Navy and Marine Corps Internet Program, providing this new service and configuration control of our applications in the naval enterprise. We began Lean Six Sigma training throughout the acquisition team, adopting an industry-best practice. We awarded successfully the multi-mission maritime aircraft system design and development contract for the lead littoral combat ship and cut the first parts and completed the configuration design concept design review on nine of ten DD(X) engineering development models.
Mr. Chairman, out of respect for the committee, I will stop here leaving much more to say. But we are indeed grateful to the committee for the chance to offer these examples and testify before you today on the 2006 budget.
Day in and day out, supporting the sailors and Marines fighting the global war on terrorism is a mission of the committee and the Department. Congressional support of these efforts is essential for the results that have been achieved. And I thank you for your consideration.
We all look forward to answering your questions. And I offer my colleagues the chance to make a brief statement.
[The joint prepared statement of Secretary John J. Young, Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Vice Admiral Lewis Crenshaw, Lt. General James N. Mattis, Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, and Rear Adm. Jay M. Cohen can be viewed in the hard copy.]
STATEMENT OF VICE ADM. JOSEPH A. SESTAK, JR., DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS FOR WARFARE REQUIREMENTS AND PROGRAMS
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Admiral SESTAK. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Taylor, distinguished members of the committee, I am honored to be here today, with my classmate Lou Crenshaw and my fellow Marine and naval brethren.
I am here to address the research and development program of the U.S. Navy. But at the same time I am proud to represent the men and women who have come up with the innovative ideas that have truly made our Navy the finest in the world today and I believe for each day of the foreseeable future.
As the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Requirements and Programs, the future is my primary focus while maintaining our current war-fighting responsiveness that the secretary spoke of.
Through detailed modeling and analysis of a world-class nature today that is then followed by military judgment, such as those who have been here, particularly General Mattis and company, we provide the war-fighting story with the supporting capabilities investment plan to the Chief of Naval Operations in order to address both the strategic and the operational imperatives of the future while being mindful of today's imperatives to assure our friends and allies, to dissuade and deter potential adversaries with the message that today is not the day for one who might think it is.
Mr. Chairman, the future Navy must be capabilities-based and threat-oriented. Our focus needs to be on unit and force capabilities as well as the requisite number of ships and the mixes of ships. Our research and developmental programs have and will continue to deliver the sensors and the networks, the platforms and the weapon systems that provide both the distributed persistence and the agility required to fight the continued global war on terror, able, for example, to immediately take a fleeting terrorist target.
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But they also must be able to provide the speed and the power to defeat any regional adversary when networked, as we are continuously in the future. In strike groups that comprise anything from carrier strike groups to our new expeditionary strike groups, it is the capabilities posture of the fleet that will allow us to do this with one Navy.
Our sea-based posture provides our nation the assured access to any region on the globe. We will be distributed. We will be netted. We will take advantage of our access not only on the seas in the future but increasingly through the other great public commons of space and cyberspace in order to provide effects-based capability to the joint commander.
We will continue to develop the innovative technologies that increase war-fighting capacity as well as the force-shaping tools, like the Fleet Response Plan, like Sea Swap, that give the Nation a greater return on its national treasure.
Our mission remains bringing the fight to our enemies overseas while protecting the strategic approaches to the United States and the global war of terror. We stand confident in our ability to execute this mission. I look forward to the future from a strong partnership with the Marine Corps, our fellow services, and Congress that has brought us the many successes of today.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to represent the men and women. I stand by for your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Secretary John J. Young, Vice Admiral Lewis Crenshaw, Lt. General James N. Mattis, Lt. General Robert Magnus and Rear Admiral Jay M. Cohen can be viewed in the hard copy.]
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Mr. BARTLETT. Admiral Crenshaw.
STATEMENT OF VICE ADM. LEWIS W. CRENSHAW, JR., DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS FOR RESOURCES, REQUIREMENTS AND ASSESSMENTS
Admiral CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Taylor, and distinguished members, I look forward to answering your questions. It is indeed an honor for me to be here today.
Just a note on Ms. Fowler. I was honored to command Carrier Group Six down in Mayport a few years ago. And one of the first calls I made was to Ms. Fowler. And I consider her to be a great friend, and our prayers are with her.
[The joint prepared statement of Vice Admiral Lewis Crenshaw, Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Secretary John J. Young, Lt. General James N. Mattis, Lt. General Robert Magnus and Rear Admiral Jay M. Cohen can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.
General Magnus.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. ROBERT MAGNUS, DEPUTY COMMANDANT FOR PROGRAMS AND RESOURCES, U.S. MARINE CORPS
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General MAGNUS. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the subcommittee, the Marine Corps joins our shipmates in our grief at the loss and admiration for the great career of Ms. Fowler. I had the great honor to talk to her several times during my several tours here. And it was very clear that she understood what orders needed and, in particular, what the naval forces needed. And it is a great loss but also a great watermark on the wall for others to follow. She was a great American.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you. Today, you know your Marines are performing magnificently because of the support they continue to receive from the Congress and from their extraordinary honor, courage and commitment.
At present, there are over 28,000 Marines in Operation Iraqi Freedom and over 3,100 in other CENTCOM-area operations. The Marine Corps has repeatedly demonstrated its capabilities as an expeditionary force in readiness, rapidly and effectively contributing to joint and coalition force operations from the sea and deep inland.
Critical to our ongoing operations are the investments we have and will continue to make to develop systems to protect and equip our Marines. Included among those are improvised explosive device countermeasures, vehicle hardening technologies, and critical individual equipment, such as improved body armor, ballistic goggles, personal radios, and for the riflemen, advanced combat optic gun sights and other systems.
Our fiscal year 2005 supplemental request contains $175 million for these IED countermeasures, $307 million for vehicle hardening, and $25 million for individual self-protection gear. We will continue to adjust as we must to meet the needs of war, constantly developing the right battlefield solutions for today and innovating for the future.
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Turning to that future, I want to highlight some programs that will greatly increase the future naval capabilities of our forward-deployed forces and our ability to surge naval forces to meet the needs of combatant commanders, projecting fires and maneuvering forces for major combat operations while countering anti-access challenges.
The Maritime Preposition Force (MPF) Future in sea-basing are some of the most critical transformation elements that will be in the future naval forces. They will permit rapid force closure and early entry through sea-based arrival assembly, not only for Marine and Navy forces but for joint forces. These shifts will project and sustain forces by selective off-load from over-the-horizon, providing logistics, maintenance, and communications, and medical capabilities at sea for extended periods and allowing reconstitution of forces aboard ship after operations on land.
The fiscal year 2006 budget includes $66 million of RDT&E (Research, Development, Test and Evaluation) funds for the first MPF Future ships. We thank Congress for the fiscal year 2005 RDT&E funds which will allow us to start developing those technologies and maintain the plan for lead ship construction in fiscal year 2009.
The San Antonio Class LPD–17, along with the LHA(R), which I will discuss next, are some of the most critical and near-term elements of ensuring that we maintain and modernize our sea-basing power projection capabilities. The LPD–17 replaces four ships, the LPD–4, LSD–36, the LKA–112 and the LST–1179 classes, providing us an enormously capable class of ships, which is essential to our expeditionary strike lift and future sea-basing capability.
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I have walked the steel that is going vertical in our gulf yards and talked to the men and women that are building it. These are truly amazing examples of what American industry can do for us.
The fiscal year 2006 budget includes $1.3 billion to fully fund the construction of the eighth ship of the class. Due to overall DOD fiscal constraint, the current plan provides for nine ships.
The LHA replacement, replacements for the four aging LHA-class ships will greatly improve our future aviation capability to project strike and maneuver forces vertically from the sea. The LHA replacement modifies the LHD design to maximize support for the B–22, the CH–53, and the Joint Strike Fighter, with adequate service margins for growth. The fiscal year 2006 budget requests $150 million for acceleration of this critical capability.
For our ground forces, our Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program remains the Marine Corps' number-one ground program and will rapidly transport Marines from ships beyond the horizon to deep inland objectives. The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle will replace the Assault Amphibious Vehicle that was fielded in 1972 and has undergone several upgrades. It provides greatly improved survivability, NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) protection, and a truly remarkable 30 millimeter cannon. The fiscal year 2006 RTD&E budget requests $254 million to continue design and development efforts in a comprehensive operational assessment.
Joint High-Speed Vessel: The Navy high-speed connector, joined with the Army Theater Support Vessel, will form the Joint High-Speed Vessel program which will be developed under Naval Sea Systems Command management. This program was truly born of joint efforts between the Army, the Navy, and the United States Marine Corps. It will provide high speed in the theater, surface lift the troops and equipment to support Marine, Army and Navy future concepts.
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This program will replace the currently leased foreign vessels which continue to demonstrate the great capabilities and actual operations, as well as an experimentation. We plan to replace these leased vessels with U.S.-constructed vessels. Lead ship award will be fiscal year 2008.
The fiscal year 2006 budget includes resources necessary to meet today's challenges and to develop the capabilities to ensure that Marines remain ready for the future. We greatly appreciate the continuing support of the Congress during this war.
Our Marines are in combat and they also see progress. Earlier this week at Camp Habbaniya, Lieutenant General Sattler, Commanding General of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, dedicated a facility for the first permanent Iraqi Security Force unit in the Al-Anbar province.
Fortunately this week, we have had fewer Marines wounded and we have lost none. A heavy price, however, is being paid to win this war and we will win this war. Over 350 Marines have been killed due to enemy action and over 3,500 Marines have been wounded. Your Marines and their families know that your continuing efforts ensure that we can take care of our warriors today and will continue to provide the Nation well-trained and educated Marines, always ready and supported by the best equipment.
I look forward to answering your questions, sir.
[The joint prepared statement of Lt. General Robert M. Magnus, Secretary John J. Young, Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Vice Admiral Lewis Crenshaw, James N. Mattis, and Lt. General Jay M. Cohen can be viewed in the hard copy.]
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Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.
General Mattis.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. JAMES N. MATTIS, DEPUTY COMMANDANT FOR COMBAT DEVELOPMENT AND COMMANDING GENERAL OF THE MARINE CORPS COMBAT DEVELOPMENT COMMAND
General MATTIS. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Taylor, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here today and to thank you for your support over many years, but especially the last three years that I have spent overseas.
I look forward to answering your questions, Mr. Chairman.
[The joint prepared statement of Lt. General James N. Mattis, Secretary John J. Young, Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Vice Admiral Lewis Crenshaw, Lt. General Robert Magnus and Lt. General Jay M. Cohen can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
Admiral Cohen.
STATEMENT OF REAR ADM. JAY M. COHEN, CHIEF OF NAVAL RESEARCH
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Admiral COHEN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Taylor, distinguished members, please accept my condolences also for Ms. Fowler. She was a real inspiration. And I arrived here the same year that she did. And she will be missed.
I just wanted to follow up and thank you all for the incredible support that you have provided for our fighting men and women and follow up on some of the comments that have been made already. Secretary England, Commandant General Hagee, CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) Admiral Clark have taken that support. And with these gentlemen and their predecessors through Operation Respond, as Secretary Young has indicated, have translated that into an effective program which I believe has saved both life and limb. And we will be forever thankful for that support.
I look forward to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Lt. General Jay M. Cohen, Secretary John J. Young, Vice Admiral Joseph A. Sestak, Vice Admiral Lewis Crenshaw, Lt. General James N. Mattis, and Lt. General Robert Magnus can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
So that I do not forget, I would ask unanimous consent that this GAO report, Plans, Need to Allow Enough Time to Demonstrate Capability of First Littoral Combat Ships be made a part of the permanent record. Without Objection so ordered.
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Thank you all very much for your testimony. Let me turn now to my ranking member, Mr. Taylor, for his comments and questions.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Young, going to the multi-year financing. We had an opportunity to talk about this yesterday. This committee has funded larger platforms like the LHDs, like the carriers, over several years. And, like I said, I was very pleased to hear both the CNO and the Secretary of the Navy express their willingness to work in that direction.
If you all, within the Secretary of the Navy's office—have you formulated a program that you can live with?
Secretary YOUNG. I think this year, this budget, represents steps down that path. There are great benefits to the department to take out the spikes caused by the high cost of some of the larger capital ships, as you mentioned.
Chairman Myers, in an interview the other day, mentioned it would have been too disruptive to the Army budget to put modularity in it to spike. And yet, the Navy and Marine Corps face this pretty consistently, because there are many programs that are roughly stable levels of funding to support forces and then to spike for several billion dollars for a ship is a challenge.
As you noted, there are possibly more benefits to smoothing those spikes to the greatest degree possible. Secretary England comes at this at least with some business perspectives where you might consider concepts where you pay the right amount of money each year for the ship as you make progress on construction. We successfully, as you noted, did that on LHDs and may be able to achieve other benefits beyond that.
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OMB (Office of Management and Budget) has supported several of these steps, including the lead ship and research and development funds, and split funding of the higher cost capital ships. So we are going to continue to work with them if we take steps beyond the 2006 budget to better ameliorate some of the big—it puts in the budget for the high-cost ships.
Mr. TAYLOR. Toward that end, how much money did you budget for the LHA(R) this year in this year's budget?
Secretary YOUNG. In this year's budget—can I get you that number?
Mr. TAYLOR. Would you please?
Secretary YOUNG. I do not have it at the top of my head. I will get it for you.
Mr. TAYLOR. I had been told through different sources that the requirement was in the neighborhood of $417 million. But that, again, if my memory serves me correctly, that nothing had been budgeted toward it. And so, I guess it would be——
Secretary YOUNG. There is money in the 2006 budget advance procurement funds. The struggle the department faced—with the help of the Congress last year, we had advance procurement funds in 2005, largely your and the chairman's efforts. Under full-funding policies, we would have had to put full funding in for that ship in 2006, and that was a spike in a very near year of the budget that we could not find that amount of money.
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So we have put additional advance procurement funds in. We need to resolve with the Congress whether those funds can be spent on vessel labor, which would be very helpful to us as we work to keep stability in the shipyard. And beyond that we have funding in 2007 to complete or to split-fund the ship, which has been endorsed by OMB also. So there is 2007 and 2008 funding to finish buying the ship.
Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. But, again, what about 2006?
Secretary YOUNG. The 2006 funds we have to resolve with the Congress whether we—we have more than adequate funds, I believe, for advance procurement of the long-lead materials, which is—you know, there are guidelines for how you can expend advance procurement funds for materials and items that are long-lead to construction of the ship.
We have funds to do that. If some of those funds could be applied to vessel labor, we could still manage the delivery of the vessel effectively and help manage critical skills in the shipyard.
Mr. TAYLOR. I really want to open this up to the panel.
Secretary YOUNG. There is $150 million, by the way, sir, in the budget in 2006 for LHA(R), characterized again as advance procurement.
Mr. TAYLOR. Okay.
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Going back to the chairman's remarks about aiding your sea going. I have noticed with great interest and certainly with great displeasure the simultaneous cancellation or reduction in the buy for the V–22, the F–22, the C130–J, the DD(X) and the Littoral Combat Ship. Is this an awful coincidence or does this reflect some of the hidden costs of the war in Iraq that we as a nation are not willing to admit to?
Our fear is that in delaying these programs and canceling some of these programs it may do us some short-term financial good, but aren't we, in effect, creating a vulnerability 5, 10 and 15 years from now when countries like China could very well be hitting their stride?
Secretary YOUNG. You wanted to open it to the panel. I will offer a comment.
The top line has consistently grown in previous years through the support of President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld. In each of those years, we managed to buy ships beyond the previous year's projection. We have typically added a ship.
This year, the top line is much more stable. The White House made a decision to seek to control spending and take steps toward deficit reduction. Those steps resulted in us being asked to build a budget program that provides the best capability for the Nation within constraints. Unconstrained, there are a lot more things that people would buy.
But we believe those constraints are reasonable. And we have produced a budget which is the most effective budget for the Navy and the Nation going forward. And so I certainly offer a chance for others to comment.
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Mr. TAYLOR. In no particular order, I guess, Admiral?
Admiral SESTAK. Yes, sir. I would underscore what Mr. Young said.
We know that there are operational costs. We also know that there is acquisition cost and, at times, the overhead for both is increasing. But this year we were given a top line that, as he best characterized it, was a bit more stable rather than increasing. And in terms of what the Navy offered, affordability is one of the factors that we had to consider. But we deemed that what we offered truly was acceptable risk within the guidelines that we were given by the Nation on our budget line.
Mr. TAYLOR. Admiral Crenshaw.
Admiral CRENSHAW. I think that, as Joe and Mr. Young have mentioned, one of the challenges we faced was to try to balance. And in my position, one of my challenges is to try to look at, not only the future challenges that we face, but the hear-and-now challenges that we are doing as well as making sure that we are taking care of our people.
And so we crafted what we consider to be a tolerable risk budget that provides the things that we need to provide in all three of those areas. So I am very comfortable with that. I mean, we did the best, I think, with the money we were allotted, given the other challenges that we face in some of the other areas.
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Mr. TAYLOR. General.
General MAGNUS. Yes, sir, Representative Taylor. Thank you for the opportunity.
Clearly, with our shipmates and with the Secretary and the Administration, we have tried very hard over not only this year but over the last several years operating within the rules, in some cases which are very specific to certain classes of ships or are in general about how we finance ships. Certainly, that is Secretary Young's area.
Operating within the top line that has provided to the Department of the Navy, I think we have done a marvelous job within the rules set within the fiscal constraints. It is also true that—I believe that the Navy and Marine Corps tried very, very hard to have an earlier delivery of some of these ships. But given those guidelines, given the affordability constraints, ships like the LHA replacement, the number of LPD–17s that you look at in the—they are not what we would have wanted to see two years ago, last year or for what we had this year. But given within those overall affordability constraints, that's why we present the administration's request for the budget that we have this year.
We certainly are concerned about the future abilities of our naval forces to sustain forces forward in peacetime and rapidly project them ashore during various kinds of contingency operations. Ship-building is probably one of the longer-term aspects of how we provide for the nation's defense. And that continues to concern, I think, my shipmates, as well as the Marines that are at the table.
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General MATTIS. I have nothing to add to that, Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. General, if I could, and I hate to put you on the spot. I am looking behind you and seeing a major. Are you comfortable that 15 years from now, should that young man be sitting where you are now, and should the Chinese threat materialize, are you comfortable that we are doing the things now that we should be doing so that he has a fleet and the weapons at his disposal 15 years from now that he will need?
General MAGNUS. Sir, it is my job to be uncomfortable. And I am not comfortable with what we are doing for the next 10 to 20 years. Clearly, the size of the battle force has been declining, although the individual ship types have been dramatically improved. But the numbers—quantity has a quality all of its own and will determine the ability of naval forces to be forward before a crisis breaks out. That concerns me greatly.
What does not concern me is the quality of the young Americans who are going to be sitting behind the major if and when he sits at this table. They will do what the Nation asks them to do, and they will do it quickly, and they will do it well. They will do it better if they are provided the right war-fighting equipment.
Mr. TAYLOR. In the past 4 years, the defense budget has grown by over $100 billion, yet the Navy fleet has shrunk by 30 ships, the number of sailors is coming down. Why is it that the CNO, the Secretary of the Navy, Secretary Young—why aren't you guys standing on the table shouting, ''Why aren't we getting our fair share?'' Because I come from ship-building country. I have also got an Air Force base. But I really do not think that you guys have been getting a fair shake.
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And the question is, is there someone above you who thinks the ships are obsolete? I think it is a fair question to ask. I mean, why aren't we building them? Why aren't we replacing them? And I have heard the argument that the capabilities have increased, but you are still putting more and more of your assets in fewer and fewer locations. Therefore, every time you lose one, then you lose a huge percentage of your force.
And I would welcome any of you or all of you to tell me why I am wrong on that observation. About $40,000, the way I figure out, between the bumboat in Yemen and the two mines that took out a—if I am not mistaken. They destroyed or at least took out of the equation for a while over $3 billion worth of our ships. I am of the opinion that is not the last time we are going to see that happen.
So I want to hear, once again, you tell me why it is a good idea to have a smaller fleet, to have more of our assets in fewer locations.
Admiral SESTAK. Mr. Taylor, I would be less than honest if I did not say to you that if I could command a battle group today rather than four years ago I would be out there with a much more capable fleet.
The money that has been spent, and the particular specific brought up, over the past few years, starting with an initiative called Hip Pocket, after we unfortunately learned a lesson with USS Cole, to put into our ships, whether you are an aircraft carrier or whether you are a frigate, the ability to, in this global war on terror, to be able to have the eyes and the responsiveness, kinetic as well as non-kinetic, to preclude that.
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It is not perfect. It can never be. We learned that on 9/11. But without a doubt the advances we have made in that particular area are enormous. The numbers are something that also challenges us. It does. But we are on the cusp right now of what I believe is truly a change that is needed.
The study, Mr. Chairman, that you directed to be done by the Office of Force Transformation I think is indicative of it, that just came out in the last week or two. This time the Navy is not shooting behind the rabbit. Two of the most principle ideas in that study are embedded in the programs that we have before you, modularity and smaller. Not all platforms, as you will see in that study.
But the LCS bodes not that we are going cheap. It bodes truly the vessel that we need at both ends of the spectrum, the global war of terror, in order to have ability to be in a number of more places because you can afford the vessel to do so, as well as the capability in a major combat operations by simply, in 24 hours, changing out 40 percent of the ship's volume to a different payload, to do ASW (anti-submarine warfare), mine warfare, or surface warfare.
There is a change that we were slow to come about, but we are on the cusp of it now. That does not preclude us, however, from being worried about the other end of the spectrum, which I know, Mr. Taylor, you alluded to. And that is the ability still in any region to give to this nation the one thing that this Navy gives it: The ability to bring a sovereign—of this country anywhere you want.
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I do not care if it is the tsunami operations where we did not want—excuse me—they did not want a bigger footprint to shore. Or if it was striking a land-locked country, Afghanistan, the first time a navy in the history of the world has done it. And giving, because no one else could give the access, the ability for ground forces to go ashore, first assault, then General Mattis.
Sir, we have challenges. And we really do need to look at some of the statements that you brought up initially of, can we do something partnering differently with industry, and Congress, and the acquisition world, a way to have our ship-building industry do things as long as I can get more stable requirements to bring about potentially more numbers?
But I do think, sir, that the budget you have before you, and I would be remiss if I did not say so, is a more capable budget than if I had been here four years ago.
Mr. TAYLOR. Anyone else?
General MAGNUS. Sir, just to add to what my good shipmate, Admiral Sestak, has said.
One of the difficulties, of course, as the costs of new weapons systems like ships goes up with capability, and given what overall affordability concerns are, including our most valuable weapons systems, which are for the Marine Corps or the Marines. The question of stability and predictability in the ship-building programs does work its way back now.
I have said before, acquisition is my lane. I have some familiarity with the problem, and so the lack of stability and predictability in many of these programs, aircraft programs as well as ship-building programs, rise some of the relatively expensive items, the highest costs because of, not so much inefficiencies—that is a problem—but also just unpredictability.
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We know what we need. And we want to be able to, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, when a major today be the Brigadier General Mattis standing off a shore like Pakistan, Afghanistan or Indonesia, be able to be assured that we can bring the kind of expeditionary warships together with MPF-Future to project power.
But if the quantity of ships goes down, they will not be there in a timely manner. We can force our way ashore. You know we have done that in past wars. We do not need to do that, but the trend lines in fiscal year 2006 are good. I mean, I understand how we got to where we are in 2006. But the trend lines, if you look out over the fifth and beyond, the trend lines are not good for the right quantity of ships that are undeniably great quality.
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, you have been very generous with your time.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
The testimony given by the witnesses was intentionally abbreviated so that there would be ample time for questions and answers. Thank you all very, very much.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am glad to be able to go after that line of questioning because I am going to go right there myself.
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Admiral Sestak, you talked about it and I hear about it all the time, about capabilities-based, threat-based and then—I think you said when you were giving your testimony something to the effect that we need the right mix of force capabilities, the requisite number and another one—one of the right mixes.
What is the right mix? I mean, I hear you all saying it. And let me just tell you what I think. What I think is that you come up with the right mix strictly based on the number that you have been given that you can spend.
Because I hear General Magnus saying he is concerned about the quantity. Well, you can have a good quality, but do we sacrifice the quantity to get your good quality? And are we not then because decisions are being made based strictly on budgetary reasons by strategic—are we then not sacrificing our future Navy and our young soldiers and Marines who are out there fighting for us right now?
I mean, I hope I am asking you so I can get a gut answer.
Admiral SESTAK. No, ma'am, you asked the right question. It kind of brings to mind General Powell when he had just been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a couple of weeks. And we went to Panama. And they said, ''Why did you send''—I think the number was 15,000 in—''to Panama?'' He said, ''Well, that is all I could get in, in the amount of time I had.'' I mean, mass means something.
But the future, ma'am, is a little different I believe. Speed means something. I think speed and persistence, being there when you need to be there, which means being there is extremely important.
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Mrs. DAVIS. Can you be there without the number of ships?
Admiral SESTAK. Yes, ma'am. And that is the question.
I felt the Chief of Naval Operations truly spoke to this issue when, for the first time, he did not give a point solution to the number of ships that we needed. I mean, it is the first time I have seen someone do that. He actually said what the reality is. You cannot predict everything. And so the range he gave was 260 to 325.
We know—and I personally put in my prepared statement—that the answer is not modeling and campaign analysis like I have said. But I do know that we have spent a lot of time, because I cannot just rely, ma'am, with all forbearance upon my gut of what is the right answer.
We have done extensive, in the last year and a half for the first time, modeling and campaign analysis, then brought to warriors for their necessary judgment. We do, and have purposely set up, all three major conflicts that we could potentially be in, in a very short amount of time, days. Speed matters.
We have proffered, and we are happy to walk down with your staff so that I do not go on too long in here, that we know that, within that range. That is based on, just not mine, but that is the warriors walking through. That if we do get the right operational availability on the low end of 260, that means the capability to swap crews out as we have done.
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If we are not able to do that, we know on the high end, 325, if we cannot do any of it—and by the way, we are building DD(X) and LCS to do it—that we can also equally do the job. No better, equally.
We know that we need a certain amount of forces forward. We know exactly—not exactly—but we know pretty much around what it takes—we have pushed this with service brethren. And we have run this where they did not and they did have access. And we know from those three major combat operations properly postured, including the submarines that we have in Guam, that we can do our job.
The challenge becomes, ma'am, something that we are still getting to grips on in all honesty, and why I believe the range was important.
And it brings, Mr. Taylor, to your question. The global war on terror is still a challenge to come to grips with.
Two things: One, we protect the strategic approaches to this nation. The words ''maritime domain awareness'' have to become our bumper sticker. It does not matter how many ships I have—we have, pardon me. I cannot identify and meet every one of those 56,000 ships that enter the United States every year that are greater than 10,000 tons deadweight.
Somehow I have to have capability. Whether it is the old SOSUS (sound surveillance system) arrays that are able to I.D., as they did in the old days for Soviet ships, merchant ships, or whatever it is to use numbers.
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Second, I believe that the biggest change, if someone were to ask me, we have brought about in the global war on terror and why I think things bode better for us in the future, is LHA(R). We closed a well deck. What a monumental decision. What a cultural change. We brought the ACE (Aviation Coordination Element) increasingly back to sea.
And we have an aviation ship for use where I believe that this nation has less access forward in the future. We are going to be able in 2015 to reach out from a platform, like we did from an aircraft carrier, one of the five off Afghanistan, and inserted the SOF (special operations) forces like we did down in—almost did in Haiti. Which is going to be able to get that person in—or out rapidly and quickly.
So, ma'am, we have run both sides of that equation. I feel extremely comfortable that the ability to have a Tomahawk missile that in Bosnia took 3 1/2 hours to retarget, that with Tactical Tomahawk, which is almost one-third less the price, we can reprogram in minutes, seconds over land. That is what those capabilities gives us.
And so, ma'am, I do not believe we solve the whole problem of global war on terror, but I think we see in that spectrum that there is in my gut, as well as analytically, a feeling that we are in the ballpark of where we need to approach the future.
Mrs. DAVIS. I hope we are looking at more than just global war on terror over in the Middle East and that we are paying attention to China building more ships than we are building. I think the numbers, or 2010, are the likes that they will have more ships than we will.
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General Magnus, I want to ask you something. If I am putting you again on the spot and you do not want to answer it, you know, you can tell me later. But, after listening to everything that Admiral Sestak said, if I am hearing correctly, you are not comfortable with what we are doing.
And I think I wrote down what you said. And I wonder what you meant by it. You said that, I think, that there were ships that we are building now that you would not want to—that two years ago, you would not have wanted to be built now. I mean, I am not sure what you meant by that. And I guess I want you to clarify it.
Do you believe we are building the right things in the right number? Are you uncomfortable.
General MAGNUS. Ma'am, thank you.
In the fiscal year 2006 ship construction budget, I believe we are in the process of what I call a transformation gearshift. With the exceptions of the first Virginia Class submarine that is in the water, all of the ships that are in the budget are next-generation ships, first of the LPD–17 San Antonio class, the LHA(R)'s, the high-speed vessels that are later on in the FYDP and of course MPF-Future, along with great ships like LCS, DD(X) and later on, the strategic follow-on projects.
These are all going to provide us the tremendous capabilities Admiral Sestak talked about to ensure that we can not only continue to dominate the deep blue ocean, as I think most people will not challenge the concept that this nation ought to be able and can do, but to stay in close to the shore, to be able to not only influence the shore but to protect fires and maneuver forces ashore for whatever kind of operations.
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But I am not comfortable that—although the quality of the ship classes that we are building is unsurpassed. I mean, American industry and our systems command acquisition professionals are doing a wonderful job delivering us the right kinds of ships.
But it is the numbers that concern me as I look out well beyond the time that I would be sitting at a table like this. The numbers are not trending in the right direction over the past three years. And that is a function of many things. It is not just the cost of the ships and not just the top line. It is not just efficiencies or inefficiencies. It is related to stability in the program. And so these are all interconnected.
But I am concerned about the ability of future combatant commanders to be able to be there early to prevent or to mitigate a crisis, or for that matter, if they have to deploy the right mix of forces with speed. There is a relationship between the right kind of force and the right amount.
And if I could, ma'am, I would like to defer to our war-fighting requirements expert, Lieutenant General Jim Mattis, who has got quite a bit of experience coming from the sea.
General MATTIS. Ms. Davis, as Admiral Sestak pointed out, we are going into an increasingly anti-access world. We have got access around the world with our garrisons around the world for many, many years. It is going to get worse in the future.
So the fleet that we are trying to craft right now is one that speedily gets into a position hoping to dissuade enemies, stop things from going worse. There are clear requirements right now as we sit here for anywhere from 28 to 30 amphibs at sea under some of the major war plans to conduct the operations.
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That requires a certain number more, of course, because we will be selling the yards and work on this sort of thing. We are not going to back off one bit from those requirements, for example, the 3.0 MEB lift, Marine Expeditionary Brigade lift, that is currently constrained to 2.5 for fiscal reasons.
The requirement stands, ma'am. And we share your focus on meeting that requirement so we do not end up now with a worse situation because we were unable to be somewhere on time with sufficient force, and now we end up putting a lot more of our treasury out to avert or recover what we could have averted in the first place.
Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the time you gave me.
Mr. BARTLETT. We were trying to figure out what all the bells were meaning. I think it means that we are in recess. I first thought they were going to call us to a vote, but six bells up there—unless they rung the bells wrong—means we are in recess. So we are fine.
Mr. Simmons.
Mr. SIMMONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen. It has been a very interesting discussion.
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I would like to pursue a couple of issues. First of all, it is my understanding that in fiscal year 2009 we have pushed back two Virginia-class submarines per year, something that many of my constituents are not happy about, but something that I would like to discuss a little bit.
It is also my understanding from a previous meeting of the full committee that that would free up about $600 million over 5 years for an advanced subsurface system R&D and procurement. This morning, I asked Admiral Clark whether all of that money was going to be for subsurface or just a portion of it. He said not all of it but most of it. So there is a certain amount of unclarity as to where those dollars are going to go. So that is information point one that I will have a question about.
Information point two: A week ago, I had the honor of attending the commissioning ceremony of the Jimmy Carter with President Carter and his wife.
Secretary Young, I was ready to welcome you there with my usual ''Hoo-ah'' but you did not show up so you did not hear me say, ''Welcome to the submarine capital of the world.'' You have heard it before, I know. Everyone seemed to enjoy that. I hope my Virginia friends enjoy it, too.
[Laughter.]
But I included Rhode Island, of course, in the accolades.
But the Jimmy Carter is an amazing ship. I would argue it is the most complicated machine built by man in the world today, bar none. It has got intelligence capabilities that will knock your eye out. But it is also expensive.
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And tethered at the adjoining pier was the NR–1, a very small little vessel that, 30 years ago or so when it was launched, it had amazing capabilities. But the thing that came to my mind was big and small, big and small. And there has been talk about reducing costs. To reduce cost, you reduce some capabilities, of course. We all know that.
But if you reduce your costs, and your R&D is correct, and you are looking at the subsurface battlefield in the littorals where the LCS is going to be on the surface, and you will see it, and you will know it is there, and it presents somewhat of a target, what are we doing to think about subsurface warfare in the littorals with low cost, capable with lower cost vessels?
And that leads to my second point that I put to the Admiral this morning. The culture of the Navy for so many decades has been nuclear when it comes to submarine, not non-nuclear.
And is it time, as we begin considering expending some of those $600 millions of dollars, or the $50 millions of dollars, is it time, as we try to keep our designers on task—because when the designers walk out of the yard, they do not come back—is it time for us to begin to look seriously at the issue of smaller, less capable but suitable for the littoral battlefield, the subsurface littoral battlefield, submarines as part of the Navy transformation?
Is it time for some of this big thinking to be brought into the process? And is it time for us to discuss where some of those $600 millions of dollars might go in the subsurface warfare arena?
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Secretary YOUNG. If I could, sir, I think that is—some of the things you said are exactly the intent of that budget-line item. We are working with the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), which really led the initiative to put the funds in there.
My understanding of their view of that is everything you said and probably bigger than that. It is a clean sheet of paper look at how we perform that undersea mission with considering given to ways to make submarines lower cost, which potentially means adjustments to the size or capability. And unquestionably, alternative propulsion concepts, including conventional propulsion, are on the table for discussion, as are though unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs), airborne sensors that feed unmanned undersea vehicles, and a network force to perform the mission in the most effective way.
So the trade space for that study is wide open, consistent with everything you said. And I hope we think in some ways beyond what you said to leverage our full spectrum of capability and the technologies we have available to sense and, if necessary, destroy in that undersea environment.
Admiral SESTAK. Good to see you, sir.
You have hit an important point. Thanks to the money that Congress has given us to work with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and Project Tango Bravo, we are already on three important aspects of this.
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Can we remove the shaft from the submarine because of electric drive? That is why DD(X) is one of the reasons it is important. Second, can we have conformal arrays on the submarine instead of this big ball that takes a lot of rooms for a sonar? Can we have a conformal array that just sticks to the skin? Third, those weapons, it takes a lot of room. Are we able to put them on the outside of the ship and fire them from there?
There are some estimates you could reduce the size of the Virginia-class 40 percent for either payload or to shrink down. So I think Mr. Young's right—and I wish I was in the room to get the answer right what the CNO said to you. But, in reality, I think the money here is one——
Mr. SIMMONS [continuing]. You do not think I rendered his comments correctly?
Admiral SESTAK. No, you did. I want to make sure—I already checked before I came here, honestly.
But that money, we are going to have to look—we do seriously want to look at a design. And everything is on the table.
But the second point you made, and I think it also goes, ma'am, to your point, numbers do matter. I do not say they do not. We know we can put a submarine outside a port. And when submarines get underway, follow the first one, or at least say, ''They are coming. Here comes the second. Here comes the third. Here comes the fourth.'' But I only had so many submarines that can pursue them.
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We could never build enough submarines to pursue each one. We could never do platform-on-platform. But what we do know, and why this money is going to be important, is we are beginning to see that, if I can have something tell me it is out there, the sensors that are sitting down in the water, and tell me about where they are each time, then I begin to—oh, by the way, I need the submarine to—almost a mother ship. And I will also need that submarine for time-critical strike, and I will also need that submarine for—so numbers matter.
But I also know that to be able to have that persistent awareness we talked about, being able to take some of that money and do what task force ASW, which you are aware of, has done, is to have also those unmanned sensors down there that can tell us also goes a long way to achieving ASW supremacy and maintain in the future.
Mr. SIMMONS. If I could follow on, Mr. Chairman, for just one more minute, relative to removing the shaft. Submarines do not have periscopes anymore, right? Remember the movies, you know, they are in their undershirts and they are up to their waist in water and sweating, and big things are happening on the surface, and everybody is scared, and the guy says, ''Up periscope.'' Up it goes, and look around, see what is going on.
We do not have periscopes anymore. Technology has gotten rid of periscopes. Technology can take care of the array problem. It already is. I mean, you know that, and I know that. I see what is being fabricated in my district with regard to arrays. It is really amazing.
Weapons systems that conform to the hull, not just weapon systems, UUVs. Jim Langevin's people are doing that up in Rhode Island, at Newport. I have got a model of one of those on my desk. My God. I cannot wait to see the real one go out, you know?
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Getting rid of the shaft, why not? The guy that put a shaft through the hull of a ship and a propeller outside the hull of the ship lived across the cove from me in Stonington, Connecticut. His name was Captain Loper. And he did it because, when they applied steam to ocean-going vessels, the side wheels get knocked up by the waves.
So he figured out putting a shaft through the hole—nobody thought that was a good idea. You never put a hole in a hull. That is not a good idea. But, you know, it is time to get rid of the shaft. We do not need it anymore.
But all of this takes money. And my concern is this: My concern is that, if we are going to take one of the Virginia-class off the schedule and capture some of those savings, then for the major in the rear, for the sailor who are submariners, we have got to apply that money to the R&D and to the development of these new systems, which everyone talks about and they publish in the Popular Mechanics magazines. But we have got to do it.
And so I just have to know that that is what we plan to do. We are not simply going to take those dollars and put them into something else.
You are nodding. I will note for the record they are both nodding yes.
Thank you very much.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
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Mr. Langevin.
Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here today and for your service to the country. I would follow on from colleague with my Connecticut and, first of all, commend you for your forward thinking in this area, about the new technologies. And I hope that those funds would stay within that area, as well.
Let me ask on that point, with respect to a potential smaller sub that could be built. Have you decided how private contractors would be chosen to work on these type of projects? Are you that far out yet?
Secretary YOUNG. I cannot tell you. Admiral Sestak mentioned the DARPA Tango Bravo effort where some private contractors are participating with DARPA and there is a Navy captain who is the deputy program manager. And so there are teams and industry partners participating in that work going forward.
The planning for the $600 million initiative, as you well know, it is a 2006 funding issue. So with congressional authorization and appropriation, we will execute a plan that is in work now in-house and planning where my expectation is we will target studies as to whether unmanned sensors, unmanned undersea vehicles, and then how much work and what goals we can get to on submarine design and then allocate the funds in a manner that way and then bring in private industry.
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Already, the DARPA work informs us that, as Admiral Sestak said, on what size reductions and potential cost reductions could be achieved in submarines to get there. And so I expect certainly some amount of funds from that allocation. We will go in and work with industry on those designs and confirming, and maybe even take steps to convince ourselves we can lower the cost of submarines. But the work will not be limited to that effort solely.
Admiral SESTAK. Sir, one point that I think you may find of interest is, when we allocate the money—or excuse me, when we make a recommendation of where to put the money in 2007 and out, it is going to go through the joint staff requirements process you are familiar with the JSIDs process, a process where increasingly in the past year and a half, requirements are developed as we try to equip, not just train and organize, but equip more jointly in the future.
I could envision a day five to ten years from now where the person in charge of that is sitting over here equally with the service requirements people. But I think that is an important aspect that OSD told us to do with this money.
Mr. LANGEVIN. Especially, if I could, with respect to the Tango Bravo project, I would remind you of the great job that folks do at Electric Boat in designing the submarines that they—in an effort.
If I could, Mr. Chairman, just on this other point, in building on the question of the UUVs and other technologies.
Admiral Sestak and Admiral Cohen, as you know, as my colleagues have mentioned already today, we have been concerned about the internal conversations and other reports we have heard of, maybe agree to a reduction in the size of the submarine fleet. And there are those who argue that such systems replaced some of the missions of submarines.
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But given the flexibility of submarines as a platform, particularly with regard to stealth, I do not think that such systems could be replaced. However, it certainly could enhance—of the multi-mission module, a Virginia-class submarine.
So could you give us some more information updating us on the status of some of these new technologies and how long do you expect that it would be until they are fully integrated with the—forces?
Admiral SESTAK. Yes, sir.
And—specific about the unmanned vehicles, correct? And what else can come out of those tubes?
Mr. LANGEVIN. Well, UUVs and other technologies——
I2Admiral SESTAK. Yes, sir. Sir, I am sure you are familiar with the UUV master plan. It is interesting today, we have a UUV that is roaming the world right now that basically is kind of operated—it is measuring the weather on the world for our Navy oceanographers. It just kind of goes down 1,000 feet, comes up 1,000 feet, and just almost never has to be charged again.
I bring that out because I see a lot of hope in the future of these UUVs. Right now, we have two companies looking at a UUV that is to be fitted right into our torpedo tubes. We are on the end-stage of trying to retrieve it after it goes out as another one, UUV, is developed for the sensors that are in it.
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We expect to have those two mated together in the—I think we call it the MRUUV (mission reconfigurable unmanned undersea vehicles), in order to deploy with the submarine.
And I think, Jay, if you could correct me, I believe that date is about 2009.
Admiral SESTAK. But we expect to have that out there.
We also then expect to have the larger one that we are looking at that we do have money toward in the area for the heavier 20,000-pound payload.
As far as the distributed sensors that we are working, we have run a series of experiments already, concluded the last one in this late fall. And we think that we are within just a few years of having these distributed sensors out there increasingly.
Today, we think we will have the advanced deployable system, the deployable SOSUS array that we can deploy from our LCS in 2008. And so we are working toward these distributed sensors and the capability to have them out there in the world.
And, at the same time, as you know, we have done an experiment in order to have come from the tubes of an SSGN an encapsulated vessel that can go up and then launch, although we only did it with an inert so far, launch actually a different type of weapon, such as NetFires or a different type of weapon that could be used for AAW (anti-air warfare), for instance, or surface warfare. So there is a lot of promise out there.
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General MATTIS. Congressman, I think Admiral Sestak has captured the breadth of it very much.
Mr. LANGEVIN. Gentlemen, thank you.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
The intensity of the subcommittee's interest in the size of the fleet and the construction schedule is obvious from the questions and the comments. This is really, of course, the subject of next week's hearing. But I thought they would be well to get on the record the concerns of the committee.
And this transcript will be available, of course, before next week's hearing. So it will be a guide to the witnesses and to the members for our discussion next week. I want to thank my colleagues very much for their introduction of these concerns.
We do have some questions that we must ask relative to basic research and R&D, and we need to ask those. We now have a vote going on. We have about ten minutes before we have to run for the vote. And what we will do is simply recess briefly.
And when we return, my colleague, Mr. Simmons, will take the chair for a few minutes. And then I will return. And I know that Mr. Taylor will come back because he has some questions and some observations that he would like to make in addition to those that he has made.
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There are two votes on. We will go near the end of this vote, and then the next vote is a five-minute vote. It really does not matter, because you simply vote and leave. So we will be gone 15 minutes or so if we leave late in this vote and come back quickly after the other vote.
I just wanted to note what has already been noted, that this subcommittee has had concerns that were expressed by the panel. And last year, we commissioned the naval architecture study.
And there were two different studies done, one by Admiral Cebrowski. And he recommended a potential future Navy that was very much larger in total number of ships than we have now, up to 800, 900 ships. And some of them very different from the ships that we have now.
We also were very much concerned about the industrial base. And I use the analogy of the farmer who has seven horses and enough food for five, and so he keeps moving the food around to the horse that looks the worse. And then tomorrow, another one looks bad.
And now this is such an austere budget that you have just reduced our five horse food stored to four. And somebody is going to die this year if we do not do something. You cannot feed seven horses on the food for four.
And so we have commissioned, which is just beginning this year—it was in last year's legislation—a study on what we call ship-building initiative. As you know, our major yards are not taking on much commercial work because they are not competitive in that area. And I am personally unwilling to admit that although that we can be successful globally in building heavy earth moving equipment, and we can be successful globally in competing in building automobiles, that somehow we cannot do that in ships.
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Our country has an enormous economy. We represent fully one-fourth of all the world's economy. And if we were able to build just one-tenth of the world's ships, we would be in hog heaven, as far as our ability to sustain our industrial base.
And so this last summer, my ranking member, Mr. Taylor, and the Secretary, Mr. Young, we went to Europe and visited four of the yards there. We planned now to go to the Orient to see some of the bigger yards there.
And the study that I mentioned, the ship-building initiative, we are asking for a blue-ribbon panel—it is now just being appointed—that will include representatives from the real world, like Caterpillar, that are competing with building this equipment with overseas companies.
And we want to see, what do we need to do so that our ship-building industry can be competitive? And I just believe that we can be competitive. And, you know, what are the other yards doing different than what we are doing? And we want to make sure that we have the right mix of people on this study. That should be available in a few months to us.
So the concerns that have been raised here, the subcommittee has initiated two initiatives, one, the naval architecture study, and the second one, the ship-building initiative. And one of those, the first of those studies, is in. The second will be in, in a few months. And then we will have some basis for some additional discussion on this.
You all come here with two obligations. The first is to support the administration's budget. You also come here with another obligation, that is to be honest with us. And you have been very good at that in the past.
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And what we do is to ask you, if money were not an object, if there were in fact additional money, what unfunded priorities do you have? What would you like to have that cannot be supported by this budget?
And I want to ask this question in the context of the funding for basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development, the first three items. And these are all proposed big cuts this year from last year. And what I would like to know is, what number—thinking about this in terms of unfunded priorities, if the money were there, how much money would you like to put into basic research, into applied research, and into advanced technology development?
I think what we will do is to ask the staff during our little recess when we are going to the vote to give you the figures that are in the budget, what last year's appropriation was and what the 2004 budget actual was. And then, when I come back, I will ask you to fill in the blanks, say, ''What numbers would you put in for those three categories?''
So we will have the staff pass out to you while we are on our recess where we are today. And when I come back, well, you can tell me what numbers you would like to put in there if dollars were not a problem.
We have just a couple of minutes before we have to recess and run to the vote.
Admiral, you mentioned Art Cebrowski's study and the concept of a lot of smaller ships. And my question is: If that is the road where we are going to travel in the future, do we need to change our basic research, our applied research, or are advanced technology development? What do we have to do so that we are prepared to go down that road, if in fact that is the one that we choose that we need to go, to go down?
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And I would like all of you to think about this. If we do not have time before we need to recess, we will continue after we return.
But we need to posture ourselves so that we will have the basic research, and the applied research, and the advanced technology development which is essential, if in fact we are looking to a different mix of ships and different kinds of ships than we have today.
Admiral SESTAK. Sir, the Admiral Cebrowski study, Office of Force Transformation, a couple of those ideas that are in there I am proud to say, because I asked to keep abreast of it over the past year—and when they came and briefed me about two months ago, I asked him where they got one of their ideas, more commonality in hulls, which is embedded in it. And I was pleased to hear that they said from NAVSEA (Naval Sea Systems Command).
I bring this out because—and I will get to your point is—I mention that I feel this time we are beginning to shoot a little ahead of the rabbit. In a sense, we are looking at smaller ships. We are experimenting a lot more.
We have joined with the Army on a TSV-HSV (theater support vessel-high speed vessel) program that we are trying to see what it is in different battle spaces might be wrought by having a much smaller type of vessel that can quickly do several possible things: re-supply, be an oiler, be a command ship, move Marines around.
How much would that take in a budget? I am a little out of my realm there. I am not trying to duck it.
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Mr. BARTLETT. We would like your best guess. And we probably need to recess now so that we be sure that we make this vote. And we will have the staff pass out to you these numbers, and we will pick it up there when we come back.
Thank you all very much.
We are in recess for the vote.
[Recess.]
Mr. SIMMONS [presiding]. The subcommittee will come to order. We are missing a minority member, Gene Taylor. I saw him over on the floor. I believe he will be coming back. We understand he will.
And in the spirit of bipartisanship and comity, we will proceed.
[Laughter.]
Are any objections posed to proceeding? If I hear any objections to proceeding—hearing none, we will proceed. If there are subsequent objections, I will be happy to entertain them.
The chairman left the panel, and perhaps the whole chamber, with a series of complicated questions that involve numbers. Should we wait for him to come back on those? Okay, we will wait for him to come back to hear the response to those.
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Let me move briefly to some of the questions that we had for the record on the issue of the sea trials. In their statements to the House Armed Services Committee during the Department of the Navy posture hearing on February 14th, both the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps discussed the role of experimentation in fostering innovation.
One of the roles of the Navy's sea-trial initiatives in the Marine Corps Sea Viking campaign in fostering innovation and the development of future Navy and Marine Corps capabilities, and some of the significant results gained from the Navy and Marine Corps experiments. And what do the Navy and the Marine Corps have planned for future experiments in this area, if any?
Admiral Sestak.
Admiral SESTAK. Yes, sir.
The interesting thing about sea-trial, first, I think, over the past year and a half, has been the change in the process. The Commander of Forces Command, four-star Admiral Fallon, now double-hatted Admiral Nathman, has actually taken control.
They are truly looking at a number of innovative things that come directly from the fleet and also from our capabilities analysis. For example, during the experiment, they had done one that was brought up by Congressman Langevin on how might we do things differently from a submarine.
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What we did in that experiment is we went out and we had actually launched something from a soon-to-be SSGN. I think it was the Georgia or the Florida at the time. I am sure you are intimately familiar with this. It was, as I mentioned, something that we could encapsulate, send something up to the top, and see if it could launch.
Since that time, because of a result of that, the commander of the submarine forces command has committed, when the SSGNs are online and operating, that he will do one experiment minimum a year from the SSGN in order to get better assessment of trying to use the tubes.
The second major area that we truly have gotten something out of from them is in the area of command, control, information, surveillance and reconnaissance. We have done things like set up issues of where an AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar could look down to see intermittently how helpful will an AESA radar be, both over the maritime as well as over the land battle.
But rather than just some past accomplishments, I think what is important to recognize is what the future bodes. Admiral Cohen can speak more eloquently than I can on this, but we now have a platform, X-Craft, that will be able to be inside as well as outside this entire sea-trial experiment, a vessel that is going to enhance the ability, when we have—prior to having LCS Flight 0, to try to bring us even more lessons learned of trying to bring an underwater or a surface unmanned vessel aboard, the ability to see how we might be able to deploy strings of array, the ability in order to have logistics be done from such a craft.
And they already have laid out, including in these experiments, how we might do this. So I think this is a great venture that has come about under the four-star fleet commander, to make sure that the experiments are something similar to what we had prior to World War II, when you know well we did Plan Orange, Black, et cetera. It is a great effort.
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Mr. SIMMONS. And as we pick up on the mention of the X-Craft, which is the littoral support craft experimental, what funding has been requested for fiscal year 2006 for evaluating the X-Craft and for using it as an experimental test and is that funding adequate?
Admiral SESTAK. Yes, sir, I can answer that, if it is all right.
There is no money in fiscal year 2006 in the budget that came to you, but we are going to fund that. In an agreement with the partnership of Mr. Young and all, we want to continue to, in 2006 and 2007, be responsible for that because of the importance of continuing it as an R&D platform. So we are committed to do that in partnership.
Mr. SIMMONS. So that would be funded under the R&D account?
Secretary YOUNG. Let me just help Joe out here, sir, for a second.
I think it would be correct to say that there is no S&T funding for the X-Craft because what we have done is shifted the focus of that to the fleet forces command. And so now it will appear in his funding lines, and he does not necessarily specifically show that.
So it is safe to say that it will be funded within the fleet forces command line. It is probably more than likely his—accounts and some S&T or R&D things if he elects to do so. But we have lost visibility in Jay's and Admiral Cohen's side of the things because we have now transferred it down to the CFFC (commander fleet forces command) guys. So——
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Mr. SIMMONS. Is the reason for this funding complexity because the current system just does not reflect the reality of what we need to get these things done? For example, this morning, the Admiral referred to the difficulty of funding, acquisition and deployment of systems because, if you have a big expensive system within a fiscal year, it basically gouges out of your budget so many dollars that to make up for that you have to pare away at other programs.
I mean, we talk about the problems of ship-building. We talk about the problems of transformation. Is the 800-pound gorilla in the room really our acquisition process, it is too inflexible, the single fiscal year system just does not work anymore, Mr. Young?
Secretary YOUNG. Boy, there are a lot of comments to be made——
Mr. SIMMONS. I am sure there are——
Secretary YOUNG [continuing]. Discussion.
Mr. SIMMONS. But, you know, we are all wrestling with the same problem on our side as well as yours, so I would be interested.
Secretary YOUNG. You know, from a range of points of view, starting at a problem I know, when we have availabilities, submarine EROs (Engineering and Refueling Overhauls) and other things, they are ship construction Navy-funded, procurement-funded. And yet, when a ship comes in the yard, sometimes we find maintenance work that should be done. It is just smart.
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I mean, when you work on your car or something else, if other smart things to be done are found, you pay for it and get that work done. We would need to use O&M money, operations and maintenance money, to do it because mostly it is maintenance activities.
But rules right now preclude us from mixing money. You cannot use O&M money to do some maintenance while you are funding something in procurement.
Then we had this discussion with the Congress. There is some anxiety about building a lead ship in R&D, where we have joint strike fighter and virtually every other system we develop built in R&D, and then we move to procurement.
Well, I think the Navy has taken a very appropriate view. And that is, I cannot afford to build an R&D ship, and then discard it, and then go build the ships I really want to operate with in procurement. And yet we would like to build a lead ship in R&D, establish a production process, and then take that lead ship and put it in the fleet, not waste it. But there is anxieties about doing that.
And then when you get to the situations like X-Craft, where we deliver a product, it becomes a debate within the Department whether to begin funding the tests and use of that product with operations and maintenance funds, which we are going to embark on with X-Craft, or do you keep it in the R&D account for a period of time or mix money, in terms of putting experimentation on it with R&D but operating funds on it, and a lot of times the rules get very complicated about whether you can even do those things.
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And I would definitely agree with what I think you were saying to the next step and that is agility. We built a budget for you back in—these gentlemen did a lot of work in May, June, July, August, so we could plan what we wanted to do. You see that budget in January. You act on it. And we get money in October, so that is, you know, 14, 16 months later.
In some areas of our business, particularly communications technology and the things we want to do for ForceNet, things have changed. And so we are faced with struggles and coming back to you, and shifting money between programs to do the right thing, or executing the program of record.
So increasingly I think you will hear the Department come to you and hope for additional flexibility in no way trying to preclude congressional oversight. But additional flexibility could let us be much more agile in conducting experiments and, frankly, making sure we put the best technology in the hands of the war-fighter.
Mr. SIMMONS. I appreciate that answer.
Admiral Cohen, do you have any thoughts on the subject?
Admiral COHEN. Just to follow up on X-Craft, the CNO and Secretary of the Navy are very, very strong supporters, have been for some time. Of course, the X-Craft was initially envisioned by the Congress. Admiral Clark embraced that in June of 2001, and directed its rapid completion.
The fleet is ready for it. Admiral LaFleur and surface forces will take administrative control. Admiral McCabe, the Third Fleet in San Diego, will take operational control. Admiral Hamilton, who is PEO (Program Executive Officer) ships, will take programmatic control. And Admiral Sullivan, who is NAVSEA 05, will take technical control the first week of May when it leaves S&T and becomes a fleet-operating unit.
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But the vision all along for X-Craft was that it is a sea frame. For the first time, and Admiral Sestak referred to this earlier with the littoral combat ship, which I believe flows out of the vision for X-Craft, that we are decoupling the sensors, the off-board weapons, the air complement here, in this case, armed helicopters, even the berthing from this multi-mission platform.
And so N76 has provided in fiscal year 2006 for OMN, operations and maintenance, Navy, to operate the ship. It only has a crew of 24. And we are splitting the crew between the Navy and the Coast Guard, because of Coast Guard Deepwater, they are very much involved.
But under Mr. Young, he has a variety of program executive officers who are involved in littoral combat, in integrated warfare systems, et cetera, who are going to take the flexible-mission modules. NAVAIR is going to take the VTUAVs (vertical takeoff unmanned aerial vehicle), like Firescout. We built this without any need for any waivers. The SEALs are going to bring their RIB (rubberized inflatable boat) boats off of the stern ramp. The submariners are going to de-risk some of their underwater unmanned vehicles, especially in the shallowest kinds of water.
And we are going to run the pants off of this for the next 12 to 18 months in San Diego as a fleet operating unit operating as a fleet component in a much larger node of the netted fleet today as a risk reduction surrogate for the littoral combat ship so that, in that time, we can incorporate in a spiral way the lessons learned real-time, weekly, on X-Craft either into the Flight 0 or Flight 1 designs of LCS.
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So when you have got a platform that is this open architecture, that is a truck, and we have designed with a fiber-optic back now. We have designed it for 12 flexible mission modules with their own elevator and XY crane, like that little game you played growing up, move anything anywhere.
When you do that, it means the monies that Admirals Hamilton, Admiral Landay, Admiral Bush have for work and development on the pieces and parts other than the hull and propulsion of a littoral combat ship can be applied toward this experimentation.
I hope I have not crossed any funding rules here. But I am just a research man. But, as you can hear, that is why I am excited. And I know the secretary and the CNO are excited. And Mr. Young has worked long and hard with his PEOs to make sure we get the max utilization out of this investment to make LCS a success.
Mr. SIMMONS. I appreciate that.
And, just as a closing comment, the design-build systems that we use for submarines are planned to incorporate design changes into the building process. You cannot afford to throw away the test model, if you will. And the computer technology that goes into that is awesome and extraordinary, but it is available. It essentially belongs to the Navy. It can be applied to just about any system.
And so I certainly encourage that. Thank you very much.
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Mr. BARTLETT [presiding]. Thank you very much.
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I just have a quick one. And this would be directed toward the Navy.
I have heard from Admiral Clark and others, all of the, what they felt like, where the benefits of sea-basing. I have also heard from a former ship captain with a pretty decent argument on the other side.
The argument he made is that when a sailor is rotated, for example, from LHA to LHA as a crew, or from destroyer to destroyer, that they lose their sense of ownership on the ship, that they no longer look at it as their engine compartment to keep at top efficiency or their gun section. I was curious to hear your response.
But the second part was, and this goes to one of the neatest quotes ever read by a fellow Mississippian by the name of William Raspberry. He said something to the effect of, when a person believes in something outside of themselves and bigger than themselves, they tend to have a better feeling about themselves. And to a certain extent it explains the Army Rangers. It also unfortunately explains the Bloods and the Crips.
My losing that identification with a ship, I was curious if the Navy has had the opportunity to look at whether or not how that affects morale.
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And then the third part is—and this is coming from some former enlisted guys. They felt like one of the reasons that people join the Navy was to—for the port calls. Apparently this certainly puts down on that. And so that kid from Topeka, Kansas, who was looking forward to seeing Tokyo for the first time or goes to Croatia, Italy, is now just going back and forth to San Diego or Norfolk and really does not get a chance to do that.
And I was wondering, has the Navy come up with a way to measure that and the effect that that has on, again, recruiting, retention, and individual morale?
Admiral SESTAK. It is a great question. There is nothing like walking down a pier with your ball cap on saying, ''Sammy B., Sammy B. Roberts,'' knowing you are the best ship around. Of course, I commanded that ship.
[Laughter.]
There is nothing like that. It is why we are in the Navy. We are not in the Navy to go to sea. We are in the Navy to build that team at sea.
That said, the United States did Sea Swap since 1810. We Sea Swap all our wooden ships, almost, in the Mediterranean. We Sea Swap all our wooden ships down in South America. There is a wonderful cemetery over there on a small island. I cannot remember the name of it, it is so small. And it is really already populated with tombstones of people who Sea Swapped and went there.
It is something we did because we needed that operational availability at the time. We also went that way with the SSBNs. And my hat is off to Admiral Cohen and people like him that knew that that is what the mission entailed.
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I guess where I am, sir, is we have Sea Swapped a number of vessels. Where I think you rightfully have heard the concern about unit identification. But we have also Sea Swapped a number of ships where this has worked quite well. We Sea Swapped, I think it was, four amphibious ships in the early 1990's out there. As we switched home ports to Sasebo and other places. We just flew a new crew out and switched the ship, and it came back.
It can work. It is a cultural change. Displaying that ability of what I feel is the most important ingredient you get from a naval officer, the ability to lead. It is the same thing when we led to stop discrimination in the services in the early 1950's. If you have got a great commanding officer, I am convinced that team will follow you, whether it is a new ship or not.
I cannot prove it to you. But I firmly believe it, that any man or woman who runs the ship well—it does not matter if they go ashore or to another ship—it can be done. The SSBN community has proved it.
I think on port calls, you are right——
Mr. TAYLOR. Admiral, I was of the understanding that the submarines had a port and starboard crew, or blue and gold. So it basically had two crews but to the same vessel, so there was a pride of ownership. There was a team that is responsible for this vessel.
And the point that was being made by this gentleman was that jumping from ship to ship loses that. And then I think this way, with all things, be it electronic or mechanical, they have certain quirks. No two automobiles are all equal. He felt like you lose the ability to respond to those problems that are going to jump up because you just are not as familiar with that vessel as you would have been.
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Admiral SESTAK. The point is taken, SSBNs switching to back to the same ship. That said, I hope this comes across right.
When you are in a high school, a man or a woman, but sharing the boyfriend or girlfriend with the other person just is not the same as owning it 365 days a year. You want to date that ship yourself, even if it is back to another ship and the other person is there.
So they had the same challenges, is what I am trying to say. Because when they went back to that ship, it is not uncommon, as I heard, for one of two things to happen. The shift that leaves wants to leave it in the best darn condition possible. That shift that clearly comes on is almost like an inspection team. ''Let me tell you how much better I am at finding things.''
There is something to be said for that competitiveness. And I will defer to Jay Cohen on that. But I think these are things we can address.
The last issue, sir, on the port calls, you are right. Many of us joined to see the world. If you are a black sheep like me, you just have to go. But my point, I think, is, I think the port calls are important to this nation.
A lot of what the Navy does is engagement. And so it is important for us to have friends and allies. It is important for us to have those force protections systems you talked about. I do not think Sea Swap precludes that. I think we can work both in as long as we do it and work through it systematically.
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We had to, unfortunately this last time, Sea Swap one of those ships in the middle of a war. And it went on and proceeded. But I think that, sir, is an important point that we have to address, because we do good for the nation, not just the individual, for port calls.
Mr. TAYLOR. The last thing I wish you would address is, is any given engine is going to spin so many times before it has got to be rebuilt. We have gone from, just in the past 4 years, approximately 325 to 290 ships. Even though they have only asked for four, I think we are really going to build seven this year. Okay, seven times an optimum of 30 will still get you at 210.
If you are spinning that engine every day, instead of half a day, you are obviously going to wear it out a lot sooner. Have you all given a lot of thought to what happens now?
Admiral SESTAK. It is interesting. There is two parts to this one, and I just actually made a call Monday on this.
The first part is, we watch the casualty reports from the ship where I was out there. And I do not think there is a surface ship commander—and I can only talk surface—who has not come back to the C.O. (commanding officer) and said he is in better condition than when he left. And our casualty rates while out there were average for any ship.
Your point, I know, is more to the longer term impact. CNO testified or spoke that our SYSCOM (systems command) was looking at this. I called the commander yesterday, Monday, just to see how they are. They are truly looking at this, trying to get to the bottom, as the Chief of Naval Operations wanted us to.
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And we are not done yet. I am just going to take some time as to the long-term maintenance lessons learned from this. Because I think you raise what needs to be addressed, sir, and we do not have the answer quite yet. We know what the short-term were, but we are looking at the longer term.
Mr. TAYLOR. General, how about for the Marines assigned to an amphibious assault ship?
General MAGNUS. There is a lot of complexities—ground task force embarked onboard Navy shipping. Admiral Sestak has got historical and current data that shows swapping of crews can work. Due to our OIF right now, we have not done the trials of this that we would like to have done. The Navy and the Marine Corps are trying to put together some trials and try this much more complex swapping out.
But there are challenges inherent to this. One is quantity, which some member of the committee brought up earlier, and one is force protection that cause us kind of to sit back and want to make certain we do a true test of this.
On the quantity, if the numbers of ships go down because we are swapping out crews, we are able to maintain the forward presence but we do not have the operational shock absorber. We do not have the numbers of ships that allow us to take a few hits or things go wrong, we go up against an enemy that is asymmetric, that we suddenly have to—where quantity becomes something to help suffocate the enemy, that would cause us a concern.
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Second is force protection. I think the surest way for any Navy in the world to find itself sunk right now is take on the U.S. Navy in the blue water. We will all bet on how many minutes they will last.
But if you take that Navy and put it somewhere, those ships and put it somewhere and try swapping out the crews, I can tell you, as someone who has fought this enemy for three years, I know how I would take on a U.S. Navy. Like the U.S. Air Force, it would not be at 20,000 feet over Southern Iraq. It would be in Khobar Towers while they are sleeping.
All the inherent force protection challenges now come home to roost on us when we try swapping out. There are ways to address this, and we can address it. But it is simply something we have got to look at, because we are more vulnerable when we are doing this swap out. A massive swap out of Marines and sailors ashore, it is obviously going to be somewhere overseas. Where do we do it?
There are some island places we could do it, like Admiral Sestak spoke about many years ago, like we have done at Enewetok Atoll, very safe. We can do it there, something like that. There are places we could not do the swap without incurring a force protection challenge.
So we need to do some trials. And our OPTEMPO (operations tempo) hopefully relents a little bit in the years ahead. We are going to do some good checks and make certain that it can be done without creating additional problems. But right now we have to take a wait-and-see attitude.
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Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
During our recess, were you all handed this sheet that had the numbers on it? Okay, you got it.
Let me tell you what I would like you to do, is simply to, without your name on it——
[Laughter.]
What we will do is to insert in the record at this time your responses. They will be anonymous, but they obviously are from the six of you. And then we will put the average down, because we just like your unvarnished opinion as to what these numbers ought to be.
So if you will take that sheet between now and when the hearing closes and write, just to the right of the $448 million for basic service, what you think it ought to be, and go down that—those first three are the ones we are interested in, basic research, 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3, basic, applied and advanced technology development.
And put down numbers you think that ought to be there. And do not put your name on the sheet so it cannot be ascribed to any specific one of you, and we will put the numbers in the record at this time. And then we will put the average of those numbers in the record.
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There will be money for plus-ups. We always find money somewhere for plus-ups without violating the top line. And you do that by finding programs where the money cannot be spent and it is just going to lay there. But there will be some money for plus-ups, and this is one of the areas that I will lobby for some plus-up because I think that we just cannot afford to do this.
So very appreciative of your honest assessment of what that ought to be.
Oh, we want six submissions. Oh, yes.
Admiral SESTAK. And I can put Bob Magnus's name down on here?
[Laughter.]
[The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. BARTLETT. We do not want to have to get a handwriting expert in to see who did not send in.
Mr. SIMMONS. I studied graph analysis in the CIA, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BARTLETT. I have a couple of quick generic questions that you probably will need to maybe respond for the record to. And then I have some specific questions we need to ask because we have got to get some answers on the record.
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And then, after a few minutes of asking a few of those quick questions, with your permission, we will submit the rest of the questions and probably to the Secretary who then can make assignments as to who will specifically answer those, so that we can get these in the record, because we need this for our work.
Asymmetric enemy was mentioned. And one of the asymmetric threats that we obviously face—and we just had a commission that spent 2 years looking at—is the EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) threat. North Korea, for instance, could send up and argue that it was a mistake. ''Gee, we are sorry it happened, but this missile just went off and this nuclear weapon—we detonated it so it was not going to fall down and hurt anybody.''
But if that was detonated straight up over the DMZ, we have lost an enormous war-fighting capability because we just are not EMP hardened. We have been waving the EMP hardening for at least a decade now in all of our new weapon systems procurement.
How much of your war-fighting capability remains after a robust EMP lay down? And note that an increasing number of potential enemies are now able to do this. And, as a matter of fact, you might not even know who is was if it comes from the sea, from a Scud launcher, on a—and that is all you need. And a crude nuclear weapon can produce, at least in a regional area, an EMP lay down.
You might need to do some research, looking and include that answer for the record. We would be very interested in knowing how much of your war-fighting capability is depreciated in a robust EMP lay down.
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And the second thing I wanted to ask you to think about, and that is the oil situation in the world. It is now $52 a barrel. I do not know if you know the name M. King Hubbert. If you do not, you will know his name. And if you know the concept of peak oil, if you do not, you will.
M. King Hubbert, in 1955, looking at the discovery and the production of oil in this country, predicted it in 1970 we would reach peak production of oil in this country and from then on it would be downhill. His analysis said that the production of oil had to follow a bell curve.
And, as a matter of fact, his projection and the actual data points are remarkably consistent. Using his analysis techniques, the world should have reached peak oil—this is worldwide—should have reached peak in 2000. But fortunately, or unfortunately, depending upon your perspective, there was a worldwide recession that reduced the demand for oil. And so now that has been pushed off. And if this year is not peak oil year, then next year.
At the top of this bell curve, it is barely flat. But as you get over the hump and start down, the decreased production accelerates faster and faster. It is exponential. We have exponential increase in production on the way up the bell curve. We will have an exponential decrease in production as we go down the bell curve.
What kind of a Navy do you want for the future? You know, when I heard that it cost us $400 a gallon to put fuel in Humvees in Iraq—that is what it costs by the time it is in the tank in Iraq, is $400 a gallon—I am wondering how much it costs us to put fuel in our ships.
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And, you know, the question I want answered is: Why not more nuclear since you are not now dependent on a supply line, you are not dependent on, in the near future, a rapidly decreasing resource? We would just like your thoughts on what we ought to be doing in R&D in the Navy if in fact the world is at peak oil.
Last year, China increased its use about 30 percent. They are now the second-largest importer in the world. They have surpassed Japan. India is rapidly industrializing. They would like more oil.
If in fact we have reached peak oil, and with these increasing demands for oil, there is going to be a lot of stresses and strains internationally as a result of this. And what kind of a Navy ought we, to be anticipating, what sort of R&D ought we be doing now in preparation for that?
Now a couple quick questions on the multi-mission destroyer DD(X). And then, after these few quick questions and your quick answers, we will submit the rest of the questions for the record.
What progress is being made in the evaluation of the DD(X) engineering development models (EDMs)?
Secretary YOUNG. I can talk through each one of them pretty specifically, if you would like.
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The advanced gun system is——
Mr. BARTLETT. If it would be okay, if you could just——
Secretary YOUNG. I will submit some of these——
Mr. BARTLETT [continuing]. And then put a little more detail in the record, that would be appreciated.
[The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Secretary YOUNG. We plan to start firing the advanced gun system in the July time frame, the test sites. We have had, I think, three or four firings of the long-range projectile called LRLAP (long-range land attack projectile).
The IPS, the integrated power system, has—the back-up motor, the advanced induction motor, is being installed in the test site as we speak. And so we are about to move to test.
In the summer time frame, at that test site, we had a challenge with the primary motor, the permanent magnet motor. We are resolving that.
The volume search radar is in test. Let me make sure I say this correctly. The multi-function radar has been in test at Wallops Island and in a January 2006 time frame will go to sea for further testing. The S-Band partner to that is in development and coming along because we made a shift from L-to S-Band.
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We had a great test of the fire suppression system on the Ex-Peterson. It demonstrated the ability to reconfigure the water system and use the valving system. In the face of a damage to that system, a warhead was set off inside the ship. Reconfigure, control the damage, and restore the ship to stable operations.
So that is one of the EDMs. The hull-form EDM we have had testing in the water table tests in the 2004 time frame. Those are nearing completion.
And then we have had an initial test of the vertical launch system, which is the peripheral vertical launch. To determine that the damage is projected outward if we have a detonation and convince ourselves we do not have sympathetic detonation, we have another credible test event in the June time frame.
So all the EDMs are coming to, over the course of this year, significant test events and results that allow us to proceed with detailed design of those systems. And that is what you see in the 2006 budget, is funds for detailed design of each of these EDM systems that are going to become part of DD(X).
Mr. BARTLETT. Does the—delay authorization of the first DD(X) until fiscal year 2007 provide additional time for this mitigation in the development systems? And how does the Navy plan to use this time?
Obviously, it provides additional time. How are you going to use it?
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Secretary YOUNG. It provides the time, and you are going to see us fairly aggressively take the monies, modest amounts freed up from design activities and other, and proceed with the, as I just said, detailed design of the gun system, the radar system, the peripheral VLS (vertical launch system), and all the systems that have to be then integrated into the ship design.
We also now have the opportunity to work the combat system and very aggressively mature that software and the hardware so that all of those systems are available for ship delivery. In some cases, we were previously delivering the radar, for example, for the lead hull just in time, frankly after the hull was complete. And now we have the opportunity to complete the design, deliver that radar in advance of hull completion.
So, in several cases, some of the concerns you have raised, the GAO has raised, have all been mitigated by the additional time we have to mature the subsystems and then integrate them more properly into the DD(X), without as much concurrency.
Mr. BARTLETT. There is an old saying: It is an ill-wind that blows no good. As you noted last year, the committee was in some internal conflict. We wanted to make sure that we maintained our industrial base. At the same time, we felt that the schedule for DD(X) was overly aggressive.
Fortunately, budgetary constraints have solved the problem for us. We now have the extra year that we would liked to have had. And we will worry about the industrial base another day, I guess, is where we are.
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Does the LCS programs schedule provide sufficient time and capabilities for experimentation and evaluation of the operational concepts for LCS before committing to serial production of the ship?
Secretary YOUNG. We might want to have additional comments from the Navy team. The one thing that has been done—and I will not get into Admiral Sestak's space—is a lot of operating analysis that tells us we are building the right hull to start with. And then I had a chance to discuss with you the fact that we did well over a thousand boardings in advance of the Gulf War in the Persian Gulf.
This hull, the speed—where the requirements bars have been set for modularity, for speed, for ride quality, so that the crew can endure, endurance of the hull, in terms of range, all those issues we believe we have set the design in the right place. We would like to get it out in the hands of sailors.
But I believe the conditions we have set suggest we are going to have a very capable ship that the Navy's going to want as fast as possible. That is certainly in the message from the CNO to me.
So, at which point in time, you know, I have to urge that we need to keep—even in this case, while it is a different industrial base—we would like to keep the people that have built the first LCS, especially if we have got it right, continuing to build the following LCSs, so we benefit from learning curve, cost productions and other things.
So I believe we have it right and should proceed into production with it. We can make adjustments. Many of those adjustments will be in the mission modules. Increasing, what we put into the systems we do not change. We have not changed substantially the hulls on DDGs, or Nimitz-class carriers, or any other ships for quite some time.
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What we have changed on a fairly regular basis is the combat systems, the computers, the software. LCS gives that to us as an opportunity in spades, because it is designed for that very change.
Mr. BARTLETT. Is there consideration given to delaying serial production of LCS following production of a limited number of LCS Flight 0 ships in order that the LCS may be given a thorough operational evaluation? Because you really do not know if you have got it right until you have had sea trials, do you?
Secretary YOUNG. Well, there is always a case for experimenting and then waiting to see. And you will pay a significant premium for the taxpayer to let that production line go cold and come back up. That is why you rightly have asked for significant analysis of the effectiveness of LCS. That work was done for joint strike fighter, and we are going to put it in serial production and agree that it is exactly the airplane we need going forward.
So if you get the requirements right, you can have that confidence. We have built in the opportunity to make adjustments in another flight of LCS if there are things that we need to tweak in the hull form.
But I really believe, from a serial production point of view, that the CNO and the Secretary are anxious to get numbers of these hulls in the hands of sailors. Because we can adjust the mission modules to provide more capabilities. And the lessons we learn we can back-fit into hulls in the next stage, or block, or lot of production.
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Mr. BARTLETT. But because these ships are probably not going to be built by our six big yards, do not we have a lesser problem with the infrastructure?
Secretary YOUNG. I think we have a lesser problem, but we also have the challenge of people that have the experience in building the ship. If we want the next ship to keep coming down the price curve, then it would be good to continue then with building the ship.
And we are building one or two ships. We would like to engender a supplier base here. If we only buy one or two things and then go back two or three years later to buy from that supplier base, in this space, things can move. Prices change. Suppliers decide, ''I am not really interested in supporting, you know, low volume Navy production when I have the opportunity to support automobile manufacturers.''
Mr. BARTLETT. What is the role of the Navy's S&T program in supporting fundamental scientific research, particularly in those areas such as ocean acoustics, in which the Navy is the chief proponent for the nation? And are the funding levels in these areas of critical Navy responsibility adequate?
Secretary YOUNG. Maybe Admiral Cohen should take the first pass at that, and then I can offer——
Rear Admiral COHEN. Given the challenges of the ocean, all of the treasury would not be adequate. But we do the best we can with the monies that are provided. In the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and in the Navy, we take our responsibilities that are unique to the naval services very, very seriously.
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And in the Office of Naval Research, we have national naval responsibilities. Those include underwater sound, underwater weapons, as well as, regrettably—this plays to Mr. Taylor's concerns—naval architecture and marine engineering because we no longer leverage off a large commercial ship-building base. But rather the Navy is in the fore of that.
So we do focus. We do protect that investment in underwater sound and underwater weapons because there is no profit motive outside of the Navy to do that. And I am satisfied that we have not only maintained that base but, over the last five years, have shown significant progress, especially in helping our brethren Marines with the mine warfare problem, which the Congress has been so interested in.
Mr. BARTLETT. Admiral, I meant to ask you, is there enough institutional memory in ONR to remember Orr Reynolds, who worked there about 60 years ago? Do you know the name?
Admiral COHEN. I do not, sir. And, as old as I am——
Mr. BARTLETT. Oh, you are a youngster.
Admiral COHEN [continuing]. I did have lunch today with Dr. Fred Saalfeld. And so I will follow up——
Mr. BARTLETT. Follow up, and see if you have someone there who remembers Dr. Orr Reynolds, who was in ONR about 55, 60 years ago, something like that, close to that, maybe 50 years ago.
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One last question, what is the Navy program for funding the recapitalization of the University Naval Oceanographic Laboratory ship (UNOLS) fleet? And how is this program funded in the fiscal year 2006 budget request?
Admiral Cohen.
Admiral COHEN. Mr. Chairman, as you are aware, in the fiscal year 2003 defense authorization, the Congress requested the Secretary of the Navy to submit a plan for recapitalization. Secretary England did submit that plan in February of 2003. We have been working with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the entire UNOLS community.
The plan to recapitalize the ocean-class, because the regional-class are going to be taken care of by NSF for about $30 million a copy, but the ocean-class are probably double, possibly two and half times. That cost was the responsibility of the Navy.
In the report, Secretary England indicated that the funding would be identified downstream because of the demands in both ship construction, Navy and R&D. The funding stream that was available to meet the secretary's commitment and our commitment to the UNOLS came out of S&T. I have gone ahead and budgeted that out of my S&T 6.1 line, making it comparable to Defense University Research instrumentation program, which are the large budget items similar to an electron microscope.
That is not the preferable solution, but the Nation is at war and there are many demands on the budget. And I believed it was important to keep Secretary England's commitment to the community to move forward with this recapitalization.
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Mr. BARTLETT. Could you provide for the record the funding, in your judgment, in addition to what is in the budget, that would be necessary to meet the commitment? On the basis of unfunded priorities, again, that there will be additional monies. And if there are additional monies, and this is an funded priority, how big is the unfunded priority?
[The information referred to can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Admiral COHEN. Yes, sir. But I must state that the community has not yet settled on a ship design. We are looking at three different variants. One would be an X-Craft, meaning a catamaran-type where they only need 16 or 18 knots. We are looking at a traditional monohull. And they are also looking at—swap-type design, all at about 2,500 tons.
So I will provide that. But I will give you the ranges, because the community has not yet determined the preferred ship. And I have required that they pick one design so we can go into production acquisition to hold down the cost and increase the interchangeability, similar to what we are trying to do with LCS, and move away from hull-specific to flexible mission modules, not on the weather deck, and also provide for UAVs and helicopters as a lily pad, because, as you know, the Ocean Commission Report has given us a vision of future ocean research that is not traditional, and I think is the right way ahead, sir.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you all very much.
As you know, we are constrained by several regalities. One is an inadequate funding stream. Second is the necessity to plan for the kind of wars that we are now fighting while at the same time making sure that we have a Navy for a potential peer in the future, either a reconstituted Russia or a China of a couple of decades from now. And these are big, big challenges.
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How do we structure our Navy so that it is optimum for fighting the kind of wars that we are now fighting and still make sure that we are going to be there with a Navy which is adequate to the challenge if we indeed in the future—I suspect we will—have a peer.
So these are big, big challenges. And the program that you all are in charge of are essential to our preparation to be able to meet these challenges. Because your husbanding the means for basic research, and applied research, and R&D, the skills that we will need to build on in the future to make sure that we have the Navy to meet these two quite different challenges.
With your permission, we will submit the rest of the questions for the record. We really must have answers for these so that the committee can effectively do its work.
Thank you all very much for your testimony and for your patience.
And our committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]