Navy Update From CNO

[Jack Ray]

U.S. Navy Plans '6th-Generation' Fighter Jet
By Christopher P. Cavas
Defense News
September 29, 2008

The U.S. Navy�s top officer is committed to keeping 11 aircraft carriers in service and ultimately stocking them with a mix of Super Hornet and Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.

�What I envision in the future is to have a mix of F-18 Super Hornets and [F-35] Joint Strike Fighters,� Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations (CNO), told a group of Defense News and Navy Times editors and reporters Sept. 26.

�When Super Hornets phase out,� they will be �replaced with sixth-generation fighters� to be developed in the 2020s, Roughead said. �We need to position ourselves so we always have a mix of airplanes.�

The Navy is working to address a so-called �fighter gap� beginning in 2015, when older-model F/A-18 Hornet aircraft will be retiring faster than new F-35C carrier strike fighters will arrive to replace them. The shortfall occurs from 2015 to 2025, with the gap at its widest � 69 planes � in 2017.

Roughead said the Navy continues to study its options on how to solve the shortage, which essentially consist of speeding up F-35 production or buying more Super Hornets.

�There have been some that have said that if we continue with [Super] Hornet production,� Roughead said, �we would be blocking the way for the Joint Strike Fighter. That is not the case at all. I really do want our air wings to have more than one airplane.�

Flying fewer than the current 10 carrier air wings would also reduce the impact of the fighter gap, but Roughead said that option is not being considered.

�For us, it will be 10 wings, and that�s what we are trying to keep,� he declared.

Sources inside the Pentagon also have said the Navy is considering a permanent reduction of its fleet of 11 aircraft carriers to 10 flattops � an assertion Roughead stoutly denied.

�I am committed to the current force of 11 carriers,� he said. �If you want to be the global navy that I think the nation needs � 11 carriers is necessary.�

Federal law requires the service to maintain an 11-carrier force, and the Navy is asking Congress for an exemption in 2013, when a 33-month gap pops up between the decommissioning of the carrier Enterprise and the entry into service of its replacement, the future USS Gerald R. Ford. Congress is balking at the request this year, but may change its mind if the service again brings up the issue in 2009.

�Our desire to drop below 11 is indeed simply a temporary measure,� Roughead said. �Right now, the law says I should have 11 carriers. I believe there should be 11 carriers, but if that law changes, I obey the law.�

Destroyer Talk

The CNO provided some explanation for his decision to seek to �truncate� the planned seven-ship DDG 1000 Zumwalt destroyer class, first to two ships and now � after significant congressional backlash � at three ships, and build more DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers.

�DDG 1000 was conceived in the early �90s and the world has changed a lot since then,� he said. �It takes us an awful long time� to develop a new ship.

The Zumwalts were designed to provide fire support ashore, Roughead explained, and can�t provide area air defense.

The ship �is a gunship. It can shoot a bullet about 80 miles. It has a point defense system,� he said. �It has missiles on it, but those missiles are really for self-defense,� whereas the threat today comes from ballistic missiles and sophisticated weapons in the hands of non-state organizations such as Hezbollah.

New Chinese Threat?

The Navy has explained the decision also was driven by the emergence of a new, classified threat it can�t publicly talk about, but which is widely assumed to be a variant of the Chinese CSS-5/Dong Feng 21 intermediate-range ballistic missile, which can be aimed at individual ships. In some planning circles, the new weapon is referred to as a �pacing threat.�

Asked if the Aegis combat system as configured for ballistic missile defense could meet the threat, Roughead said it could.

�I consider Aegis to be capable of meeting the pacing threat,� he said.

But he admitted that �there will come a point in time when there will be new systems, new developments� in threats. �Throughout history, things change,� he said.

On other topics, Roughead does not think the fleet has widespread readiness problems, despite several recent and particularly bad material inspections of two Aegis warships and two new amphibious ships.

�I�m not concerned that there is a systemic readiness issue,� he said. �Not at all.�

As to whether sailors have enough money to keep their ships in fighting shape, Roughead said managers need to be flexible in moving money to where it�s needed, but that the fleet overall is �doing well.�

�When I look at the fleet readiness data and the maintenance money the fleets have and the percentages of maintenance being completed, we are doing pretty good,� he said.

Some sources in the Pentagon have suggested Roughead hasn�t been as outspoken as he might have been on certain issues, such as the DDG 1000, because his predecessor as CNO, Adm. Mike Mullen, now serves as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Roughead vigorously declared otherwise.

�No one has been more mindful or supportive of me as CNO as my boss,� Roughead said. �I�m extraordinarily grateful for that.�