This works out to exactly 4200 units.It gives enough support ships to CVBG and ESG with enough smaller vessels for littoral /coastal groups and preserving a respectable submarine arm and support force. I personally think the navy should gear more toward frigates and corvette types to blend with LCS’s and patrol craft.Influence Squadrons are far to weak to intervene in coastal support with a single DD and 1 LCS and could easily be over matched .

Amphibious Assault: 126 (9 hulls)
1x LHA-6 = 40
2x LPD-17 = 30
3x JHSV = 6
1x DDG-51 = 25
1x SSN-774 = 20
1x T-AKE = 5

Littoral Interdiction: 44 (8 hulls)
7x LCS = 42
1x JHSV = 2

10x Carrier Strike = 2500 (70 hulls)
10x Amphibious Assault = 1260 (90 hulls)
10x Littoral Interdiction = 640 (80 hulls)

Total cost: 4200
Total number of hulls: 240

Fleet totals:
10x CVN-21
40x DDG-51
30x SSN-774
10x LHA-6
20x LPD-17
70x LCS
40x JHSV
20x T-AKE
= 240 hulls

Okay, so it’s not a 313 ship/boat navy … but that’s kinda sorta what the whole exercise is pointing out now isn’t it? I could reach the 313 ship/boat navy “ideal” by sacrificing two carrier strike groups and two amphibious assault groups, and then plowing the savings gained back into littoral interdiction groups. You then wind up with a 8/8/27 mix of groups, rather than the 10/10/10 I’ve got here, for a total of 344 ships/boats (and I’m not sure I’d really want 55% of the hulls in the water to be LCS types in such a scenario).

The thing is though, groups of 10 like this are really convenient for deployment rotations. It lets you keep 3 or 4 groups of each type on active deployment at all times around the world, depending on operations tempo, while permitting sufficient downtime on the other groups for replenishment, training, R&R and SLEP. That allows a “permanent” force projection stance to be maintained, along with a high degree of readiness.

No there are no Zumwalts in this plan.

40 x SSN-774 (800): A strong submarine force is vital for fleet defence as well as to confuse the enemy. Again, HMS Conqurer and the Falklands. By sinking the Belgrano, she virtually forced the Argentine fleet to port on her own. That is how valuable a decent submarine manned by a well trained crew can be.

10 x DDG-1000 (500): Now, these you DO need. By only selecting six David, you’re painting yourself into the same corner that the MoD in the UK is by only building Six Type 45s. It doesn’t matter that there are going to be lots more DDG-51 to fill the gap, you need a bare minimum of the best Destroyer you have to make sure that you can spread them across the globe and still have a reserve in case of emergency, parts, training, etc. Just having six for fleet defence and nothing more is cutting it way too fine.

25 x DDG-51 (625)

15 x LCS (90)

15 x LPD-17 (225)

10 x LHA-6 (400)

35 (175) x T-AKE: These new logistics ships are really interesting in their modular design and uses. Build as many as you can.

10 x (20) JHSV

Total Fleet = 166

Total cost = 3615

There you go! Under budget and yet still delivering a strong and robust navy which can still sink the navies of Europe, China and Russia combined. Happy days, lets go celebrate.

If you add any patrol ships..you know..like the ones which could be used off the coast of Aden right now, then these can be paid for by the huge savings I’ve engineered.

Tell Obama I’ll be on my mobile and skype tonight.

I’m still a little bothered by the lack of any escort and patrol classes in the options, this biases fleet design towards battleships and away from flotilla. At minimum an escort frigate and a patrol corvette are required. I would also love to replace 4 of the LHA’s with true CVE’s. I follow Smitty’s costings:

FFE : ~4200t Frigate, Air Defence and ASW specialist escort.

OPV : ~2000t Corvette, similar to the NZ Protector OPV.

I also adopted the T-AO oiler, and MRV ~9000t light amphib.

Summary:

CVN-21 5
LHA-40 7
DDG-51 31
SSN-774 23
FFE 115
LPD-17 13
LCS 23
MRV 10
JHSV 94
OPV 210
T-AKE 43
T-AO 58
Total 632

Detail:

3 Carrier Groups @ 288 for 864:
CVN 1
DDG 3
SSN 1
FFE 6
T-AKE 2
T-AO 2

2 Blockade Groups @ 420 for 840:
LHA 2
DDG 2
SSN 10
FFE 10
T-AKE 1
T-AO 2

12 Commerce Protection Flotilla @ 96 for 1152:
DDG 1
FFE 4
JHSV 7
OPV 15
T-AKE 1
T-AO 2

3 Amphibious Strike Group @ 214 for 642:
LHA 1
DDG 2
FFE 3
LPD 3
LCS 5
MSV 2
T-AKE 3
T-AO 2

2 Humanitarian Relief Groups @ 99 for 198:
LPD 2
LCS 4
MRV 2
JHSV 5
OPV 15
T-AKE 2
T-AO 2

1 Logistics Group @ 245 for 245:
FFE 20
T-AKE 10
T-AO 14

2 Relief Carriers @ 130 for 260:
CVN 2

If a CVE is available they would replace all the LHA’s in the BG’s.

Just added a little blue water to my amphib force. Would still love to trade a dozen Burkes for 25 frigates.

6 x CVN-21
40 x SSN-774
20 x LCS
10 x JHSV
26 x T-AKE
20 x LPD-17
10 x LHA-6
6 x DDG-1000
32 x DDG-51

With my $2-billion-a-year Obama bump, I added:

1 x CVN
4 x SSN
30 x LCS
15 x JHSV
8 x T-AKE
2 x LPD
4 x DDG

The LCS and JHSV are for more coverage of the littorals and use as “mini-amphibs.” I’ve added T-AKEs and LPD-17s to support these littoral gators. For blue-water ops, I added some subs, plus one carrier and a few more destroyers to escort the carrier and other ships.

With the Obama bump, my fleet grows from 170 to 234 vessels. This represents a small decrease in blue-water power and a big increase in littoral power compared to today’s fleet.