{"id":44024,"date":"2018-01-04T14:59:58","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T14:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/01\/04\/here-are-the-top-issues-facing-the-us-surface-fleet-in-2018\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:41:06","slug":"here-are-the-top-issues-facing-the-us-surface-fleet-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/digital-show-dailies\/surface-navy-association\/2018\/01\/04\/here-are-the-top-issues-facing-the-us-surface-fleet-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Here are the top issues facing the US surface fleet in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-smg-jwplayer-video\"><atype-video-jwplayer nostick=\"true\" playlisturl=\"https:\/\/cdn.jwplayer.com\/v2\/playlists\/fCzRqMW8?tags=68dcc4e0-bc14-4237-b8f2-9d0a5497a0b8\" poster=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/video-poster-68dcc4e0-bc14-4237-b8f2-9d0a5497a0b8.jpg\" aspectratio=\"16 \/ 9\" mute autostart=\"false\"><\/atype-video-jwplayer><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Naval warfare reporter David Larter offers his take on the state of the U.S. Navy&#8217;s surface fleet after recently embarking with service personnel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 After a turbulent 2017, the United States\u2019 surface Navy sails into 2018 with a mountain of challenges but also opportunities to fix long-standing issues and build for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Analysts, Navy observers and industry representatives who spoke to Defense News outlined a series of issues the surface fleet needs to tackle this year. The major items included implementing changes to address the readiness issues identified in the wake of the deadly collisions in the Pacific over the summer; focusing on increasing the offensive lethality of the fleet; and moving out on new shipbuilding projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Navy\u2019s dual reviews \u2014 the Fleet Forces Command-led comprehensive review and the Navy secretary\u2019s strategic review \u2014 slammed fleet leaders in the Pacific for allowing readiness to slip as it pushed its ships to meet ever-increasing requirements. The secretary\u2019s review traced decades of cutting corners and failures that put the fleet in the position it now faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The reports found several issues, among them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Sailors either froze or failed to act during critical junctures when actions could have avoided disaster, pointing to training shortfalls among crews.<\/li><li>The Navy lacked a good mechanism to make sure its sailors and officers remain sharp on basic seamanship and navigation skills throughout their career.<br><\/li><li>The Navy had a culture that caused it to cut corners to meet real-world demand.<\/li><li>The Navy needed to establish clearer lines of authority and responsibility to avoid fuzzy ownership of readiness and training issues.<\/li><li>Career paths for officers emphasized staff and headquarters assignments, de-emphasizing the Navy\u2019s core function of safely operating ships at sea.<br><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bryan McGrath, a retired destroyer skipper and consultant who heads up The Ferrybridge Group, said he\u2019ll be looking at how the Navy implements the changes recommended in the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn 2018 I\u2019m looking for measured and mature reactions to the comprehensive review and the strategic review that address important issues concerning surface warfare employment in the western Pacific,\u201d McGrath said. \u201cBut I\u2019m also looking for signs of overreaction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>Looking for more on the U.S. Navy\u2019s surface fleet? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/digital-show-dailies\/surface-navy-association\">Get the latest here.<\/a><\/b><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jerry Hendrix, a retired naval flight officer and analyst with the Center for a New American Security, agreed, saying he\u2019ll be watching closely how the Navy learns lessons from the accidents that claimed the lives of 17 sailors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019ll be watching for how the Navy takes on board the lessons learned from the collisions, whether we see investments in training and readiness,\u201d Hendrix said. Yet, he cautioned against draconian cuts in other areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s going to be interesting. You are going to have a lot of voices arguing the emphasis on reinvesting in readiness, I think there is a lot to be said for that,\u201d Hendrix noted. \u201cBut readiness also can become a bottomless well that never gets filled, so a balance of readiness and crew training and investment in new technologies and capacity is what\u2019s needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thomas Callender, a retired submariner and analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said any solution that does not address capacity \u2014 the number of ships the Navy has to perform the jobs it\u2019s assigned \u2014 would be incomplete because overstretching the force is what led to or exacerbated the issues in 7th Fleet in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou can\u2019t address readiness and not address capacity,\u201d Callender said. \u201cCertainly there was neglect and not doing things we should be doing in the past, but it\u2019s also a capacity issue and it becomes a snowball effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAs fewer ships get overstretched, overtasked and more worn out, when they get into maintenance it takes longer and is more expensive. So we have a capacity issue and Congress has recognized that, but at the same time there are the fiscal realities: We\u2019re not getting a trillion-dollar defense budget any time soon. So senior [Defense Department] leaders are going to have to make some hard choices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>\u2018Liquored up\u2019 on 355<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congress recently passed a provision in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act that made a 355-ship Navy national policy, but that\u2019s dependent on appropriations. The prospect is one that most analysts have become gloomy about after a brief spasm of optimism when Donald Trump was elected president on a platform that promised a massive defense buildup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s New Year\u2019s Day and now we\u2019ve got a hangover \u2014 we all got liquored up on a 355-ship Navy when Trump was elected, but now it\u2019s back to reality,\u201d McGrath said. \u201cThe name of the game is continuing to pursue the durability and lethality of our surface ships. We\u2019re going to hear more about distributed lethality and distributed maritime operations \u2014 individual unit hardening, self-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A retired Navy captain who now works in industry agreed that 2018 needed to be a year for innovation and moving the surface fleet forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Navy has to innovate big time, and not just in technology but in the way we fight,\u201d said the captain, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid professional conflicts. \u201cIf we are going to be pertinent and relevant in the second half of the 21st century, we\u2019ve got to make changes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The surface fleet needs to move away from using active, onboard sensors to acquire and direct fires toward enemy targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn the 21st century, if you radiate, you are going to die,\u201d the captain said, arguing that using off-board active sensors (i.e., drones) and keeping all electronics onboard the ship as passive sensors will be the way the Navy will continue to dominate going forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keeping the cruisers and upgrading them is also a priority if the Navy is going to expand its capacity in the near term, experts agreed. The Navy is currently on track to begin decommissioning the cruisers at a rate of two per year in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hendrix said he is watching for a plan to keep the cruisers in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cService life extensions are going to be a big issue,\u201d Hendrix said. \u201cAre we going to take those challenges seriously because I\u2019m worried about that, especially losing the [vertical launch system] capacity when those cruisers go away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>New ship programs<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The other major item the experts will be watching for is new shipbuilding programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Navy unveiled its plans for a next-generation guided-missile frigate in 2017, but details of what exactly the ship is going to look like and what it\u2019s going to do are still being fleshed out. The Navy recently collected industry ideas about ships that would fit the bill \u2014 many of which are variants of existing foreign and domestic-designed ships \u2014 but the service is still torn on what it wants out of its new frigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOne of the key things this year will be to see where they go with FFG(X) and the impacts that will have on capabilities that are sorely needed \u2014 especially in the Pacific,\u201d Callender said, using an acronym for the service\u2019s frigate program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hendrix agreed, saying the frigate was one of the key issues of 2018 for the surface Navy. The frigate is the Navy\u2019s answer to some of the shortfalls of the littoral combat ship, which was not designed for fighting near-peer competitors in the blue ocean. But the whole idea of frigates is to have a lower-end, less expensive ship that can take on tasks that ease the burden on the high-end shooters \u2014 the cruisers and destroyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Making sure the Navy is disciplined about keeping the ship\u2019s requirements in check so as not to build a duplicative mini-version of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is vital to the success of that program, Hendrix argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFFG(X) is the big issue of the year, and there has already been some maneuvering behind the scenes to again slant this towards a high-capability platform, and that\u2019s missing the boat about what that platform is suppose to be about,\u201d Hendrix said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Navy needs to keep its costs down so it can build more of them and ease the strain on the fleet\u2019s capacity, Hendrix added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Callender, the service also needs to move out on a replacement for the Burkes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey are way behind the eight ball on this one,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done some great things in the Flight III Arleigh Burke [about to enter production], but we\u2019ve kind of reached the technical limits of that design. We can\u2019t continue to pack more power and capability into that design, so we definitely need to move forward with the future surface combatant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a turbulent 2017, the surface Navy sails into 2018 with a mountain of challenges but also opportunities to fix long-standing issues and build for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":66521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":103,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"7":{"categories":["your-navy","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"your-navy"}}},"categories":[160,29,162,16,36,103],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3361],"class_list":["post-44024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-digital-show-daily","category-naval","category-newsletters","category-surface-navy-association"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"RXOLTEAPFBHMVD4WCTGWUBPC5I","arc_canonical_url":"\/digital-show-dailies\/surface-navy-association\/2018\/01\/04\/here-are-the-top-issues-facing-the-us-surface-fleet-in-2018\/","remove_feature_photo":true,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Here are the top issues facing the US surface fleet in 2018 - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After a turbulent 2017, the surface Navy sails into 2018 with a mountain of challenges but also opportunities to fix long-standing issues and build for the future.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Here are the top issues facing the US surface fleet in 2018\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After a turbulent 2017, the surface Navy sails into 2018 with a mountain of challenges but also opportunities to fix long-standing issues and build for the future.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/digital-show-dailies\/surface-navy-association\/2018\/01\/04\/here-are-the-top-issues-facing-the-us-surface-fleet-in-2018\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Defense News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-04T14:59:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T23:41:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David B. 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