The Fleet of the 2030s, and the Ghost of Transformationalism

...we know where the minefield is...

There was a lot to get excited about at last week’s Surface Navy Association confab, and I’ll get to that in a minute, but it would be wise to temper one’s expectations.

20 years seems like a long time, but in many ways it is not. As we look forward to what our fleet will look like at mid-century, we should look back to what we were all promised in January of 2005 that was going to transform into the Navy of the 21st century.

There were four ship classes that were going to be the surface fleet that we were promised at the time, were going to ensure America’s dominance at sea for the next half century.

(NB: most of the hypertext links below go to the tags from my OG Blog that predate my move to Substack three years ago. Those will point you towards my writing two decades ago or so on these programs at the time, if you are so interested.)

LCS. We were once supposed to get 55 of the marketing/consultancy-named Littoral Combat Ship. We’ll wind up with 25. Not suitable for combat in the littorals, but steps are being made to get some use out of them…somehow.

DDG-1000. We were once going to have 32 of these. We got three. Its main weapon, the two 155mm guns, were never made operational and are being removed. The ships are being turned into weapons demonstrators for Conventional Prompt Strike. I hear great things about the engineering plant, but they have yet to do a proper deployment, nine and a half years after the commissioning of hull-1.

Ford Class CVN. A dozen years ago, we thought it would deploy with UAVs as you can see below (pause for a moment in honor of the martyred X-47B, the greatest crime of the Obama Era Navy), but no. Hull-1 took 8 years to commission. Hull-2 will take 12. Can’t seem to have a workable CHT system.

CG(X). In 2005, we thought we would build at least 19. Complete loss of control of the program to the point it was put out of its misery. We still don’t have a proper carrier escort. Looks like the Japanese will build what we should have, and the only hope we have now is…BBG-1.

Why dig all this institutional shame and dishonor up, again? Simple, we need to be humble, and the leaders today need to hoist onboard the errors of the past.

Now, back to last week. For our fleet of the 2030s and on to face the world’s largest navy (in 2005 it was the US Navy. Now it is the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Well done everyone), there are three ships right now that we have to ponder as our future surface force.

BBG-1. I am hearing that we will see 15-24 of these.

FFX. 50-65 ships. I may write a critique at some point. ES: I look forward to Flight II.

DDG(X). We still do not have a final configuration or a number we want to build…I think.

Let’s wind things up with a return to a comment I made at the top. “Why keep beating up on the Age of Transformationalism™?”

Whenever I would get pushback on my regular articles about the failure of the Age of Transformationalism™, mostly along the lines of “Why keep digging up all the negative vibes” angle from the usual suspects, I would reply that we had to keep reminding everyone of the errors of the past so that the next generation responsible for husbanding our future surface combatants will not repeat the errors.

The collapse of the Constellation Class FFG program dampened my hope that we will take the path of success, but…here we are.

Will this generation succeed to the same and opposite degree the previous generation failed? With the same program, people, and bureaucracy in place—it does give one pause, but I am a deeply closeted optimist.

With a few exceptions, we seem to be mitigating technology risk by leaning on proven systems, or systems expected to be proven. That may not be sexy, but it displaces water.

We are long overdue for world-beating ship designs to show the world what a premier naval power looks like.

We should be optimistic…but demanding when it comes to performance and discipline.

Keep a weather eye, demand accountability, and smile through the inevitable challenges. We have to get this right. We can’t lose another generation of shipbuilding.

Some of the pics above via the irreplaceable Chris Cavas.