Navy Rethinks 355-Ship Fleet: CNO Richardson

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/02/navy-rethinks-355-ship-fleet-cno-richardson/

Navy Rethinks 355-Ship Fleet: CNO Richardson

By Paul McLeary
on February 01, 2019 at 4:47 PM

PENTAGON The Navy’s top officer said this morning he’s rethinking the service’s previous plans to field a 355 ship fleet and expects a study with “a new number” later this year. “We want to make sure that we are moving forward in a very deliberate way — in an evidence-based way — so that we’re not counting on something that hasn’t been relatively proven,” the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, told reporters at the Pentagon during an off-camera chat. “We also want to make sure we’re moving fast so that we don’t get disrupted or beaten.”

Whatever the number might be — and there are plenty of questions over what kind of hulls the Navy is looking to develop and buy — it is becoming increasingly clear the Navy is looking to make some bets on emerging autonomous and machine-learning technologies to put more unmanned ships in the water.

At a naval conference earlier this month, Navy officials talked up the possibilities inherent in two new unmanned programs: a medium-sized Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) which should be about the size of the experimental 132-foot Sea Hunter launched in 2016, and a larger USV somewhere around the size of a corvette, but loaded with missile launchers. The smaller unmanned craft would spot targets for the larger ones and for the rest of the fleet, while also decoying enemy missiles away from targets with US sailors aboad. The Navy has said it wants to award a large USV contract by 2023.

Putting more unmanned vessels in the water to serve as floating pickets in front of carrier strike groups is one way to grow the fleet relatively quickly, while also saving on manning and equipping costs. But it’s not clear if the Navy will consider floating rocket launchers and surveillance assets as full-fledged vessels worthy of counting toward the service’s total number of hulls.

While Richardson didn’t offer any clues, his announcement of a new force structure assessment is significant, as the service and its allies in Congress and industry have pointed to the 355 number as the baseline of what the nation needs to confront China and Russia. Even before the Navy settled on 355, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump endorsed a 350-ship Navy based on a Heritage Foundation study.
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