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| The Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer, USS Benfold (DDG 65) returns to homeport San Diego after completing a seven-month, independent deployment to the 7th Fleet Area of Responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Rosalie Garcia/Released) |
In recent years, in response to budget constraints, there has been discussion of homeporting major elements of the Navy and simply surging them, if needed. The claimed benefits include reduced physical wear on the ships since they would remain docked most of the time, reduced manpower requirements since the ships would need nothing more than a caretaker crew, and reduced operating costs due to the reduced crew and curtailed deployments.
This was simply an examination of the concept of homeporting/surging a fleet. Properly done, it has some advantages but it also comes with disadvantages. However, done as the Navy and many supporters would have it, a modern Navy cannot be surged and the Navy is unintentionally proving it right now.
U.S. Navy’s Overseas Force Structure Changes
Navy Moving Two Additional BMD Destroyers To Japan - USNI News
The U.S. Navy announced today that the ballistic missile defense (BMD)-capable guided missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65) and USS Milius (DDG 69) will become part of the Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) based at Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan.
As part of the U.S. Navy’s long-range plan to put the most advanced and capable units forward, Benfold and Milius will leave their current homeport of San Diego and forward deploy to Yokosuka in the summers of 2015 and 2017, respectively. The move directly supports the announcement made by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in April of this year that the Navy would commit to sending two additional BMD-capable ships to the defense of Japan by 2017.
The Next Act for Aegis - USNI News
Aside from the success of the BMD missions, the Aegis program made the most headlines due to problems in the force.
The 2010 final report of the Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force Readiness (short-handed as the Balisle Report, after panel leader, retired Vice Adm. Philip Balisle) found the condition of the Aegis systems fleet wide suffering due to lack of parts, training and lack of qualified personnel.
“That was the biggest klaxon at the time and that brought everyone’s focus to bear,” Kilby said.
In 2011, the Navy kicked off the Aegis wholeness project and four years after the Balisle report, the Navy claims the day-to-day Aegis woes are largely behind them.
What remains to be seen is how well the Navy can integrate the new surface capabilities into the fleet.
“We are entering for the first time into the world of integrated air and missile defense,” Kilby said.
“Let’s get good at it.”
Homeporting ships overseas considerably increases the forward presence— U.S. naval forces in overseas operating areas—that the Navy's existing fleet provides and has other near-term benefits such as rapid crisis response, but incurs higher operations and support costs when compared to U.S.-homeported ships. GAO found that casualty reports—incidents of degraded or out-of-service equipment—have doubled over the past 5 years and that the material condition of overseas-homeported ships has decreased slightly faster than that of U.S.-homeported ships (see figure below). In addition, the Navy has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on overseas infrastructure and base operating costs since 2009, while moving large numbers of sailors, dependents, and ship repair work overseas. GAO also found that the high pace of operations the Navy uses for overseas-homeported ships limits dedicated training and maintenance periods, which has resulted in difficulty keeping crews fully trained and ships maintained.
Assessment of Surface Ship Maintenance Requirements | RAND
A comparison between the cumulative maintenance levels for the DDG-51 and the levels specified in the Navy's technical foundation papers showed that the Navy is not in general funding to the level as stated in the technical foundation papers. This casts doubt on the validity of the technical foundation papers' requirements and the Navy's commitment to carrying out the maintenance stated in these published papers. Given this, the Navy will need to consider alternatives to the technical foundation papers' process as it formulates requirements and source plans.
Ships of similar age and operating histories whose major difference is basing histories, e.g., foreign homeporting — with the attendant effects on maintenance — can show dramatic differences between the overall costs to maintain. Maintenance deferrals exact an extremely high premium that drives ship cost up in ways inconsistent with the need to contain costs. Any maintenance construct needs to understand and budget for the high cost of deferral or devise mitigations for cases where deferral is inevitable.
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