Day. Defense Daily. Visit us at the SAS Show April 7-9 Booth 1900

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1 SAS Special Show Coverage Day 1 Defense Daily How to Keep an Aircraft Carrier: The Navy's $7 Billion Problem By Megan Eckstein Congress wants the Navy to keep 11 aircraft carriers in its fleet. The Navy wants to keep 11. Law dictates that the Navy keep 11. And yet, the Navy s budget plans assuming that sequestration remains the law of the land does not include funding to refuel the USS George Washington (CVN-73), instead defueling and inactivating the flattop. Navy officials have said for weeks it would take an additional $7 billion across the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), from fiscal year 2015 to 2019, to conduct the refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) and keep the carrier in the fleet. They would rather keep the ship, they said, and would change their budget plans if Congress indicated they would unshackle the Defense Department from sequestration in FY 16. They say they ll decide next year whether to defuel or refuel based on signs from Congress. But as lawmakers, industry officials and even some admirals have admitted, the truth is much more complicated. Will Congress step in? Several congressmen have said they fully expect the carrier refueling to find a place in the budget, though none could say how they would accomplish that feat. But the will appears to be there. I think the carrier needs to be activated...i think Congress will probably go ahead and push the administration to get that carrier back into the fleet, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, told Defense Daily on March 28. The amount of time and effort that goes into building these naval reactors to think that we would be mothballing something that would have 25 years more of a life, I think, is just plain wrong. I think when we finish at the end of the day, wherever the day is, the carrier will be back in there, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), chairman of the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee, told Defense Daily on March 26. I think there is a passionate will to do that, not just on the committee but across Congress. But the two chairmen have different approaches for how to make that happen. Asked if he was willing to cram carrier RCOH funding into the budget after the Navy insisted there wasn t room, Frelinghuysen said, we re going to work with Secretary [Ray] Mabus and Adm. [Jonathan] Greenert. We re going to work with them, I don t think we need to go to combat with them. I think all of this first of all, on the committee, we hate sequestration, we Continued on page 4 Visit us at the SAS Show April 7-9 Booth 1900 Day 1 Monday April 7, 2014 Schedule Of Events 6:30 AM - 5:00 PM Attendee Registration Open Registration Lobby - Ballroom Level 8:30 AM - 9:00 AM Opening Ceremony Potomac Ballroom AB 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Exposition Open - Exhibit Hall 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM Sea-Air-Space Panel: Service Chiefs' Update - Potomac Ballroom AB 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM Floor Speaker Session: "Application of Engineering in NAVAIR NAVAIR, Booth # :30 AM - 11:45 AM Roundtable: "Naval Energy for the Warfighter - At Sea & Ashore" - Potomac Ballroom C/123 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM Roundtable: "Ohio Replacement Program Update: A Partnership of Progress" Potomac Ballroom D/456 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM Floor Speaker Session: Joint Strike Fighter Update - NAVAIR, Booth # :30 AM - 11:00 AM Floor Speaker Session: DDG 51 Class Update - NAVSEA, Booth # :45 AM - 11:45 AM Floor Speaker Session: Assured Command and Control Navy League Pavilion, Booth # :00 AM - 11:30 AM Floor Speaker Session: Surface Fleet Logistics Today - USCG, Booth :00 AM - 11:45 AM Floor Speaker Session: PEO (A) Portfolio - NAVAIR, Booth # :00 AM - 11:30 AM Floor Speaker Session: DDG 1000 Class Update - NAVSEA, Booth #2323 Continued on page by Access Intelligence, LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines of up to $100,000 for violations.

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6 6 Defense Daily April 7, 2014 Continued from page 1 Continued from page 1 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM Floor Speaker Session: Surface Ship Torpedo Defense - NAVSEA, Booth # :00 PM - 1:30 PM Sea Services Luncheon Potomac Ballroom AB 1:45 PM - 2:30 PM Floor Speaker Session: Advanced Tactical Aircraft Protection Systems Update - NAVAIR, Booth #1423 1:45 PM - 2:15 PM Floor Speaker Session: Stabilized Small Arms Mount - USCG, Booth :45 PM - 2:15 PM Floor Speaker Session: Battle Space Awareness - Navy League Pavilion, Booth #1002 2:00 PM - 2:30 PM Floor Speaker Session: Electromagnetic Railgun Announcement (with video presentation) - NAVSEA, Booth #2323 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM Floor Speaker Session: The Fleet Integrated Training Environment NAVAIR, Booth #1423 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM Floor Speaker Session: Shore Energy and Infrastructure Resiliency: Preparedness & Recovery Navy League Pavilion, Booth #1002 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM Roundtable: "The Challenge of 2020: Preparing for an Uncertain Security Environment" - Potomac Ballroom D/456 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM Roundtable: "Operating Forward: Partners in Global Presence" Potomac Ballroom AB 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM Roundtable: "U.S. Opportunities for Arctic Council Chairmanship" Potomac Ballroom C/123 3:00 PM - 3:45 PM Floor Speaker Session: NAWCWD Update and Spike Capabilities NAVAIR, Booth #1423 3:15 PM - 3:45 PM Floor Speaker Session: Foreign Military Sales Trends: Increasing Demand for Enhanced Follow-on Support USCG, Booth #1028 3:15 PM - 3:45 PM Floor Speaker Session: Open Systems Architecture Navy League Pavilion, Booth #1002 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM Floor Speaker Session: Naval Surface Warfare Center Technology Demo NAVSEA, Booth #2323 3:45 PM - 4:15 PM Floor Speaker Session: FACE Update NAVAIR, Booth #1423 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM International Maritime Panel Discussion: Security Cooperation - Building Maritime Partnerships - Cherry Blossom Ballroom 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM International Maritime Reception Cherry Blossom Ballroom hate the continuing resolutions, and both the administration and Congress are somewhat responsible for this straitjacket we ve put ourselves into. But I do think projecting naval presence out there, in this type of environment, is important, so I think we re going to work closely with the administration to get the job done. What Frelinghuysen promised, despite the unknowns about how to pay for the RCOH, was that he wouldn t postpone the decision the way the Navy proposed doing. The discussions are ongoing, I don t think we re going to wait until next year to settle this matter, he said. Asked the same question, Forbes responded that he and his HASC subcommittee have not gone through the budget request line-by-line to look for potential cuts, but he didn t rule out that possibility. I feel pretty comfortable we ll get it back in. I can t tell you all the pots we ll take from but I think that will be a debate we ll have both privately and probably publicly before all this shakes out, he said. For the Navy s part, the will is there too. During a March 26 hearing with Forbes subcommittee, Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources, described the Navy s extensive effort to keep its carrier fleet intact amid the threat of continued sequestration. If you remember last summer, DoD could not believe that we could not cut two or three carriers. The Navy, through a tremendous effort led by [Navy acquisition chief Sean] Stackley freed up money in the Navy budget to be able to reduce that number down, he said. A little more time to continue looking at the budget, as well as assurances the Navy will see at least some sequester relief in FY 16, would seal the deal on keeping George Washington around, he said. How much would it cost? The $7 billion price tag to keep the George Washington masks the complexity of the situation. A breakdown of the bill shows a lot of unknowns, as well as a lot of items that would affect other line items in the budget. In the current spending plan, laid out in the president s budget request last month, the Navy would spend $2.4 billion from FY 15 to 19 to bring the George Washington back from its homeport in Japan to the Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] yard in Virginia and then defuel and inactivate it. To keep the ship would cost $7.046 billion above that for a $9.446 billion bill over the FYDP, a Navy official told Defense Daily. The current budget plan assumes the carrier would be inactivated and its associated air wing would be shut down and therefore the Navy would need fewer aircraft. The plan includes a $250 million placeholder line to account for terminating the multiyear procurement contract with Sikorsky [UTX] for MH-60R helicopters. The Navy had planned to buy 16 in FY 16, 11 of which would go to multiple air wings and five of which would serve as spares. The exact cost of terminating the contract a year early is unclear, as many of the termination fees The USS George Washington (CVN-73). Photo: U.S. Navy and production line shutdown costs are negotiated

7 April 7, 2014 Defense Daily 7 between the contractor and the military customer when a termination decision is made, the Navy official explained. If the Navy were to keep the George Washington and its air wing, the service would have to find an additional $1.474 billion for the air wing, the official said, to account for purchasing the 16 MH-60Rs and paying for the personnel and operations and maintenance of the air wing. The Navy official stressed the plan laid out in the budget is completely reversible the FY 15 budget request fully funds the MH-60R contract, including advance procurement for the 16 helicopters, and the Navy would want to finish out the multiyear deal if Congress provided the funding to maintain the aircraft carrier and its air wing. The current funding plan includes manpower funding that tapers down as the years go on the thinking being that as the ship progresses with its inactivation, fewer sailors would be assigned to the ship. The budget request calls for full personnel funding in FY 15 at $323.7 million, then dropping to $198.5 million in 16, $165.5 million in 17, $90.7 million in 18 and $33 million in 19, the official said. A carrier battlegroup led by the USS George Washington (CVN-73). Photo: U.S. Navy But the personnel costs somewhat muddle the true cost delta between refueling and defueling the ship. If the Navy changed course and opted to refuel the ship, it would need almost full manning levels each year, which about doubles the bill for personnel alone across the FYDP. The Navy also calculated it would need $125.7 million in additional shipyard operations and maintenance dollars to account for more sailors and their families being at Naval Station Norfolk. However, the Navy official said in no uncertain terms that the service would not push sailors out of the Navy if the carrier were inactivated. Instead, those personnel would be put into empty billets elsewhere so those manpower and base operations costs aren t true cost savings, they would just be pushed into other accounts within the Navy budget. Finally, if the Navy refueled the George Washington, the bulk of the cost would be the refueling itself. The Navy lists this as a $4.393 billion cost for the refueling, plus a few additional associated costs that lift the total to $5.077 billion to refuel and modernize the aircraft carrier. To stay on schedule, the Navy would have needed about $800 million in FY 15.The Navy official said that sum is not a drop in the bucket, but the service could have found those dollars. However, unsure whether Congress would grant additional sequestration relief and allow the Navy to squeeze the other $6.2 billion into the FYDP, the official said it would be irresponsible to spend so much money planning and buying materials only to have to cancel the refueling next year if sequester relief is not granted. Is it worth it? By all accounts, yes. Those in the aircraft carrier business have said the United States has 11 carriers in a 15-carrier world. Dropping down to 10 would jeopardize today s 2.0 carrier presence, with one in the Pacific and one in the Arabian Gulf at all times. Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, told a group that included members of Congress, the Navy and industry that if the Navy dropped to only 10 aircraft carriers, the impact on the rest of them in the deployment cycle is really extreme. Gortney, who ensures all the East Coast ships are properly manned, maintained and ready to deploy on time, said at a March 27 breakfast that the aircraft carrier fleet is already strained he just sent the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) out on a scheduled 9-and-a-half-month deployment. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not a sustainable model sailors won t do that, sailors and their families won t do that, but it s the only way we can make it, he said. As he revamps the Fleet Readiness Plans for each type of ship, he hopes to get the carrier strike groups to a 36-month cycle that includes just one 8-month deployment. We need to make sure we understand the ramifications of a decision regarding the number of aircraft carriers, he said. We ll still get our deployment lengths down to 8 months, and we ll get our homeport tempo to 68 percent until GW is supposed to come out and back into that rotational cycle, and that s in And then we re back to 9-and-a-half-month deployments. So, this is a long-range problem that we have to work our way through. When is a decision needed? Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus have said repeatedly that the decision on the aircraft carrier s fate has been postponed until next year they have not decided to inactivate the ship, even though that s the course of action

8 8 Defense Daily April 7, 2014 reflected in the budget documents. Mabus even told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 27 that he could wait until the FY 16 budget process in Congress a full year from now before he needed a signal from Congress on whether lawmakers might be willing to provide sequestration relief to let the Navy keep its aircraft carrier. But Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) suggested the signal should come now, and HII Vice President for In-Service Aircraft Carrier Programs Chris Miner said the shipyard really ought to start some of its planning now. Miner pointed out that the Navy has little experience inactivating aircraft carriers: the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is the only one thus far, but that ship had a different design than the current Nimitz-class carriers and therefore used plans that wouldn t apply to George Washington. The Nimitz won t retire until 2025, so no plans exist yet. Miner said the Enterprise defueling and inactivation took three years to plan, so the Navy would need to begin planning soon for an inactivation to avoid disrupting the drydock schedule at the yard. We really do need to get the decision to the point where they put money in FY 15 for planning, he said, stressing that the company obviously hoped the Navy would decide to keep the carrier in the fleet. The Navy has $245 million in FY 14 money that it has not yet spent on the RCOH planning effort. Navy acquisition chief Stackley said at the March 26 HASC hearing that the service would release $63 million for planning the defueling section alone not for ship modernization or refueling plans but cautioned against that logic, saying a defueling for a refueling does not equate exactly to an inactivation, so from the company s perspective they need the whole sum of money to begin planning for work on the ship in its entirety. n LCS Fared Well In Open Seas War Game, Navy Says By Mike McCarthy The Navy recently conducted war games involving the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) that showed the ship-class may have a greater capability operating in a blue water open seas and as part of a larger aircraft carrier battle group than previously anticipated, the Navy s top admiral for surface warfare said this week. The war gaming took place last week and was designed to examine the capabilities of both Freedom and Independence variants of the LCS class in the open seas, beyond the littoral waters that have been thought of as its primary warfighting domain, Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden, the Navy s director for surface warfare, said. My initial impressions are that it s going to play much more significantly in the open water than we have previously opined, Rowden told a small group of reporters on a conference call Tuesday. The gaming was envisioned in the mid-2020s and consisted of about 125 strategists and tacticians to operate the U.S. and notional enemy forces, he said. It also included systems, such as for mine countermeasures or surface warfare, still in development and not yet deployed, but expected to be ready in the years ahead. During one operation the Navy combined the anti-submarine warfare capabilities of an LCS and Arleigh-Burke-class destroyers, and generated a significant return, Rowden said. Simultaneously, the Aegis guided-missile destroyer was able to provide air theater defense to protect the smaller and less air-capable LCS. The LCS program has been under criticism over questions of survivability. Last month Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reduced the total buys of the ship from 52 to 32, instructing the Navy to explore possible alternatives to meet the service s small surface combatant requirement. Hagel said that could include a modified version of the LCS vessels to give them increased survivability and lethality. The Navy subsequently established a task force to evaluate a follow-on small surface combatant or next flight LCS. The process is still in the early stages and expected to be completed by mid-summer, so it remains to be seen whether the Navy The Littoral Combat Ship USS Freedom (LCS-1) during last year s deployment to Southeast Asia. Photo: U.S. Navy will pursue a small surface combatant or modified LCS with an augmented air defense capability.

9 April 7, 2014 Defense Daily 9 Rowden, emphasizing the evaluation was just beginning, said a key question will be price. He also noted that the coupling of the LCS with a guided-missile destroyer to increase anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities as shown in the war gaming, along with the added benefit of air defense provided by the destroyer, may be a more cost-effective approach. When I would start to see the higher end threat, I would move toward the coupling with the guided missile destroyer simply because (a) I was significantly worried about the undersea threat and (b) I can get kind of the twofer if you will by pairing it up with the guided missile destroyers, Rowden said. Certainly affordability of the ships that we build in the future is going to be part of the calculus as we go forward, and if I can...make a ship survivable with a modification of the concept of operations, especially when I consider the fact that when I coupled the ASW system on it with an LCS or the ASW system on a guided missile destroyer, I got a significant increase in The Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado (LCS-4) during acceptance trials. Photo: U.S. Navy my ability to go hunt submarines, Rowden said. It seems to me that is a better way to go and attack the air threat associated with the Littoral Combat Ships as opposed to perhaps investing in increasing the air defense capability. n Ohio Company Provides Solution To Navy s Next-Generation Lighting Initiative Energy Focus Inc.'s IntelliTube LED lighting solution. Photo: Energy Focus Inc. An Ohio-based company believes it has a solution to a Navy initiative that requires new lighting technology to replace legacy fluorescent lighting. Energy Focus Inc. has developed a light-emitting diode (LED) product called IntelliTube that uses fluorescent replacement technology. These plug-and-play LED lamps can replace the existing linear fluorescent tube lamps, also known as T-12, used in most of the Navy s light fixtures. The secret behind IntelliTube is a tiny microprocessor, or brain, that allows the circuit to detect and actively reconfigure, tricking the lamp sockets into believing a normal fluorescent light was just plugged in. The lights are called T-12 for their tubular shape and twelve-eighths of an inch diameter. A T-8 light would be eight-eighths of an inch, or one inch, diameter. Energy Focus said the Navy wants to buy non-fluorescent lights for new build destroyers and potentially all new Navy ships. The company said Thursday it will retrofit the Navy s aircraft carrier fleet, which at 80,000 or more linear fluorescent lamps per carrier, represents the largest users of shipboard lighting in the service. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) said in 2011 it created the Solid State Lighting (SSL) initiative, which is being installed aboard several ships and submarines. ONR said not only are next-generation LED fixtures a quality of life improvement as they reduce background noise during operation, but compared with fluorescent lights, LED fixtures last longer. They are also more efficient and reduce maintenance requirements, energy usage and costs associated with storage, handling and disposal. LED lights contain no hazardous materials, unlike fluorescents, which have mercury and must be stored on board until warfighters can perform expensive, and intensive, disposal procedures. Energy Focus said its product contains neither glass nor hazardous materials, requires no additional removal or storage costs and uses 50 percent less power. Energy Focus also believes its IntelliTube LED fixture is strong enough to withstand common shock and vibration found on Navy ships like aircraft carriers and destroyers. n Defense Daily (ISSN ) is published each business day electronically by Access Intelligence, LLC Managing Editor: John Robinson, jrobinson@accessintel.com Assistant Managing Editor: Ann Roosevelt, aroosevelt@accessintel.com Business: Calvin Biesecker, calvinb21@aol.com Congressional Reporter: Megan Eckstein, meckstein@accessintel.com Navy Reporter: Mike McCarthy, mmcarthy@accessintel.com Air Force Reporter: Pat Host, phost@accessintel.com Editor Emeritus: Norman Baker Director of Marketing: Kristy Keller, kkeller@accessintel.com Publisher: Thomas A. Sloma-Williams, tawilliams@accessintel.com SVP: Jennifer Schwartz, jschwartz@accessintel.com Divisional President: Heather Farley, hfarley@accessintel.com SVP Information Technology: Rob Paciorek President & CEO: Don Pazour To advertise in Defense Daily contact Daniel Chase at dchase@accessintel.com. For site licenses and group subscriptions, contact Erica Lengermann, elengermann@ accessintel.com. For new orders, contact clientservices@accessintel.com or +1 (301) To advertise contact Daniel Chase at dchase@accessintel.com or To subscribe, contact clientservices@accessintel.com or +1 (301)

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