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Bernard

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Congress Adds Cash to Special Account to Build New Nuclear Submarines
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| Monday, April 20th, 2015 8:36 pm
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Congress plans to add money into a special fund established this year for the purpose of paying for the Navy’s next-generation, nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines, the Ohio Replacement Program.

The 2015 National Defense Authorization Act established the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund as an account created specifically to fund the program; however, it did not receive funding in the initial budget request.

Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, told Military.com that his Congressional subcommittee will add money to the fund as part of its current mark-up of the 2016 defense bill.


“We’re going to put some dollars in that this year. As you know we’ve wanted to get that fund established,” Forbes said. “I think this year you will see us actually putting dollars in there and increasing the opportunity for the Department to put additional dollars in there down the road.”

The exact amount of the mark-up has yet to be revealed. Congressional and
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leaders wanted to create the fund to separate its spending line from the Navy’s formal shipbuilding budget in order to avoid depleting needed shipbuilding accounts.

If the funding for the Ohio Replacement program would have come from the Navy’s annual shipbuilding budget – it would have devastated the Navy’s overall long-term plans for the fleet, officials have said.

Rear Adm. Joseph Tofalo, Director of Undersea Warfare, said there is historical precedent for the U.S. coming up with innovative funding strategies for undersea nuclear deterrence. He cited the original
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first built in the 1980s and the first nuclear armed submarines first built in the early 1960s, called “41 for Freedom.”

“The Navy is going to need top line relief in order to accomplish the ship building program. When ’41 for freedom,’ and then the Ohio-Class, were built, the Navy received about $5 to $7 billion per year in additional funding for ship building. When you compare those years to all other post-Korean war years, you see that top line relief is historically consistent with what has happened over time. The issue is the additional resources and that is the conversation that is going on,” Tofalo said.

Slated to serve through 2085, the Ohio Replacement program, the nuclear submarine is scheduled to begin construction by 2021. Requirements work, technical specifications and early prototyping have already been underway at General Dynamics Electric Boat.

Designed to be 560-feet–long and house 16 Trident II D5 missiles fired from 44-foot-long missile tubes, Ohio Replacement submarines will be engineered as a stealthy, high-tech nuclear deterrent.

Production for the lead ship in a planned fleet of 12 Ohio Replacement submarines is expected to cost $12.4 billion — $4.8 billion in non-recurring engineering or development costs and $7.6 billion in ship construction, the plan states.

The Navy hopes to build Ohio Replacement submarine numbers two through 12 for $4.9 billion each.

Detailed design for the first Ohio Replacement Program is slated for 2017. The new submarines are being engineered to quietly patrol the undersea domain and function as a crucial strategic deterrent, assuring a second strike or retaliatory nuclear capability in the event of nuclear attack.

Citing the Ohio Replacement Program’s electric drive technology as a vital part of its ability to stay quieter and on patrol through the 2080s, Tofalo said discussions to fund the program were going well.

“When the new strategy comes into effect we are going to have 70-percent of our nation’s account able nuclear warheads with the submarine force. This is a ship that is going to be on patrol through the 2080s – it is a tremendous return for the American taxpayer when you talk about preventing major power war,” Tofalo added.

The Navy is building 12 Ohio Replacement submarines to replace 14 existing Ohio-class nuclear-armed boats because the new submarines are being built with an improved nuclear core reactor that will better sustain the submarines, officials have said.

As a result, the Ohio Replacement submarines will be able to serve a greater number of deployments than the ships they are replacing and not need a mid-life refueling in order to complete 42 years of service.

Electric Boat and the Navy are already progressing on early prototype work connecting missile tubes to portions of the hull, officials said. Called integrated tube and hull forging, the effort is designed to weld parts of the boat together and assess the ability to manufacture key parts of the submarine before final integration.

In 2012, General Dynamics Electric Boat was awarded a five-year research and development deal for the Ohio Replacement submarines with a value up to $1.85 billion. The contract contains specific incentives for lowering cost and increasing manufacturing efficiency, Navy and Electric Boat officials said.

The successful creation of this fund could raise questions among
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and
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leaders seeking for ways to fund some of their top dollar, high-priority programs. For example, the Air Force might seek top line relief for its new bomber program and the Army might wish for funds to pay for its next-generation helicopter program – Future Vertical Lift.

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Jeff Head

General
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Defense News said:
WASHINGTON — Development work for the new Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, scheduled for 2019, is on track, a key US Navy admiral said Monday.

"We know we need more power, we know we need more cooling," Rear Adm. John Hill, program executive officer of integrated warfare systems for the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), told an audience at the Navy League's annual Sea Air Space exposition. "But that is where [NAVSEA] is focused."

The Flight III ships will be fitted with the new Air Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), under development by Raytheon. The new sensor will replace SPY-1D radars fitted in earlier versions of the ships.

The first Flight III ship is scheduled to be the second of two destroyers to be funded in 2016.

"By all accounts we're on track. Everything's looking good for this destroyer," Hill declared.

"When we get this ship to sea it will be the most powerful warship on the planet."
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
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USNI News said:
The Navy told Congress it would pursue a 10-ship multiyear procurement contract for its Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in Fiscal Year 2018
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, which also announced a nine-ship attack submarine block buy and delays in several auxiliary ship programs.

The plan, which the Navy admits represents a “best case scenario” – one in which Congress pays for the Ohio replacement ballistic missile submarine program outside the shipbuilding account and in which the Navy is not held to Budget Control Act-level funding – notes a 308-ship requirement and shows how the Navy plans to meet that requirement from 2022 to 2031

The destroyer contract is one piece of reaching the goal, as the Navy plans to keep the production line open through FY 2029.

In 2013‪, NAVSEA made a similar $6.1 billion multiyear deal with Huntington Ingalls Industries and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works for nine – which grew to 10 – Arleigh Burke DDGs. The price-per-hull came to $660 for HII and $700 for BIW, not including government-furnished equipment like radars and vertical launch systems (VLS).

In late March, both yards received contract modifications as part of the deal. HII was awarded $604.3 million for DDG-121 while BIW won $610.4 million for DDG-122.

The first Flight III DDGs will be part of the FY 2016 ships. Its unclear which yard will be the first to build the modified destroyer with the upgraded Raytheon Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), Naval Sea Systems Command told USNI News last week.

The shipbuilding plan indicated the Navy will pursue a nine-ship multiyear procurement contract for the Block V Virginia-class SSNs bought between FY 2019 and 2023. That contract supports continuing two-a-year SSN procurement except during years when an Ohio replacement SSBN is built, when only one SSN will be built. Officials have said that, in terms of shipyard workload, one SSBN is about equal to two SSNs.

To go along with the SSN block buy, the Navy notes in the plan that the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) would be built into at least one submarine per year beginning in the FY 2019 block buy, though Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley told the House Armed Services Committee in February that he was looking into whether that timeline could be moved up a year. The VPM is a mid-body section that would be added to the submarine and include four additional launch tubes, or 28 additional Tomahawk missiles or other payloads, to help compensate for the loss of the SSGN guided missile submarines, which will have all retired by 2028.

The Navy has updated its LX(R) amphibious dock landing ship replacement program to “a more efficient procurement profile,” which procures the lead ship in FY 2020 and begins serial production in 2022, according to the document. Previously, the Navy planned to buy the ships every other year and not enter serial production of amphibious ships until 2028. The Navy chose a modified San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock to serve as the LX(R), and the new profile would allow a smoother transition from the LPDs to the LX(R)s.

The document states that, as a result of budget constraints, one of the two T-ATS auxiliary tugs, which will replace the T-ATFs and T-ARSs, will be delayed from FY 2017 to 2019. The lead T-AGOS surveillance ship replacement will be delayed from FY 2020 to 2021, and it the Navy is in the midst of an engineering review to determine if the current T-AGOS ships’ lives could be extended further beyond the planned 30 years.

The plan announced a cancelation of the LCC amphibious command ships in FY 2032 and 2034, and instead the Navy “will look at alternative means to meet the requirements fulfilled by these ships, such as modular systems that can be temporarily installed on an existing ship.”

Of course, the Navy notes, all these plans are subject to adequate funding. The document states that the Ohio Replacement Program (ORP) will move ahead as scheduled regardless of the fiscal situation, and the Ford-class aircraft carrier program will have to continue to maintain a legally mandated 11-carrier fleet. That said, the document notes that the ORP will “consume about half of the shipbuilding funding available in a given year – and would do so for a period of over a decade. “

Without additional funding for shipbuilding, or paying for the ORP with non-shipbuilding money, “Navy would be limited to, on average, as few as two other capital ships (SSN, DDG, CG, LPD, LHA, etc.) per year throughout this decade,” the document states.
“Such low shipbuilding rates for an extended period of time would result in a battle force inadequately sized to meet our naval requirements in support of the DSG. Further, there is significant risk to the industrial base in this case since low production rates outside of the SSBN and CVN production lines may not provide adequate work to keep shipyards operating at minimum sustaining levels and could result in shipyard closures.”

Highlights:

- 10 ship DDG, Burke Flight III Block buy in FY 2018 (1st ship funded in 2016)
- 09 boat SSN, Virginia Class block buy in FY 2019 (1st VPM to be moved up a year)
- Move up 1st LX(R) to FY 2020 with serial production starting in FY 2022.
- LX(R) to be based on modified San Antonio LPD design. (Already decided)
- Cancel FY 2032 & 2034 LCC Command Ships. Incorporate capability into another design.
- Delay one of two T-ATS tugs from FY 2017 to FY 2018.
- Delay lead T-AGOS surveillance ship replacement one year from FY 2020 to FY 2021
- Begin to fund USS Ohio class SSBN replacement outside of normal budget.
- Build two Virginia SSNs per year, except in SSBNs years, building one SSN those years.
 

cyan1320

Junior Member
Hope it's not a repost
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The Navy’s unmanned combat air vehicle demonstrator, the X-47B, not only plugged into a refueling basket trailing behind an Omega KC-707 tanker, but it also sipped gas from it for the first time. This historic mission is slated to be the X-47Bs last in what has been an
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with huge implications.

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Bernard

Junior Member
Just an awesome article about my favorite Submarine Class... The Seawolf!

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Submarines are a lot like Batman, they are covered in rubber and are great fighters, but they are gadget toting stealth detectives at their core. Of the Navy’s sub force, there is no boat more capable at sleuthing under the high seas than the heavily modified Seawolf Class submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter SSN-23.

The 12,150 ton displacement USS Jimmy Carter, whose namesake qualified in Submarines during his pre-Presidential naval career, is one of only three Seawolf Class submarines ever built. The Seawolfs are relics of the final stages of the Cold War and are the most lethal
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ever created. The F-22 Raptors of the sea, they could dive incredibly deep, could haul along at speeds approaching 40 knots, and they were quieter than any other nuclear submarine on the planet. They were also armed with a cache of 50 weapons and wide 660mm torpedo tubes.


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Seeing as the first boat was launched during the “peace dividend” years of the 1990s, its $3B price tag was thought to be too high and its ‘blue water’ sub hunting mission was becoming a secondary priority for the US Navy as the majority of Russia’s submarine fleet was rotting next to a pier. Instead, future subs would need to be more multi-role minded
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and be more at home in shallow, littoral environments close to shore. As a result, the Seawolf class was replaced by the smaller, cheaper, and somewhat more flexible Virginia Class that remains in serial production today.

Regardless of the type’s cancellation, the Navy did receive three Seawolf Class boats, the Seawolf, Connecticut and the Jimmy Carter. With the Jimmy Carter, the Navy took advantage of the Seawolf Class’sdeep-diving and ultra-quiet capabilities and created a one-off subclass that would become part of a small but very proud lineage of shadowy American submarines that were highly modified for clandestine surveillance and espionage operations.

The Jimmy Carter, which was commissioned in 2005, differs from the standard Seawolf Class submarine via a slew of modifications made during her initial construction. A massive 100 foot long hull extension gives the Jimmy Carter a length only second to the
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Ohio Class Submarines (SSBN/SSGN) in US inventory. This extension, called the Multi-Mission Platform, is described as a ‘moon bay’ with an hourglass shaped passage running down the center of it.

This rounded underwater hangar of sorts can hold outsized deep-diving vehicles, unmanned vehicles, custom-built heavy machinery, spools of cable, special forces supplies and craft, deployable sensors and weapons, along with just about anything else you can imagine. Through a lockout chamber system built within the MMP hold, divers, commandos and remotely operated vehicles can be deployed and recovered.

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Other modifications to the Jimmy Carter include a set of precision thrusters, both fore and aft, that allow the sub to hold its position perfectly within space while conducting sensitive mechanical operations or when quietly trawling shallow waters. The Carter also has a large reconfigurable cargo bay, just off the MMP’s lockout chamber/ocean interface, for servicing vehicles and preparing for clandestine missions.

A modular command center can also be tailored to the specific mission at hand, with different configurations available for special operations, deep sea espionage, mine warfare, specialized sensor or
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deployment and just about any other mission you can think of.

The Jimmy Carter’s mast can be easily adapted to sport unique, purpose-built electronic surveillance and communications sensors. There is also said to be a remotely operated vehicle handling system that may feature the ability to recover autonomous vehicles and even aerial drones with limited human direction.

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Finally, SSN-23 can accommodate an extra 50 commandos or mission personnel above the standard crew size of about 130. Instead of sleeping in the torpedo room or other improvised areas as is common for special operations soldiers aboard submarines, this berthing was built into the original ship’s design, making long endurance deployments more palatable.

Because the hull was lengthened 100 feet to accommodate many of the Jimmy Carter’s additional capabilities, the boat did not have to give up the baseline Seawolf Class
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and strike abilities. This means the vessel can protect itself in hostile waters or be tasked for traditional fast attack submarine duties, although it seems like this may be a fairly rare occurrence.

So what does the Jimmy Carter do with all its modifications? Like its USS Halibut, USS Seawolf, USS Richard Russell and USS Parche, which were modified ‘special mission’ subs that came before it, the Jimmy Carter conducts espionage, and could even conduct sabotage, in a variety of manners.

Its ability to hold perfectly on station at great depths, all while deploying custom built ROVs and other elaborate hardware, allows it to tap communications and data cables running along the sea floor. In the past, this was done by splicing in tailor made recording devices, leaving them for a period of time, and recovering them at a later date for exploitation. Today, in an age of fiber optics, more exotic forms of real-time seabed-based communication eavesdropping could theoretically be facilitated by the Jimmy Carter, with the NSA rumored to one of the boat’s biggest ‘customers.’

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Tapping the world’s massive underwater arteries of data is one thing, but the Carter could also be able to sabotage communications nodes via simply cutting through the wire with large claws or torches, or by setting up mechanisms that could do similar tasks on command sometime in the future, should the need arise. Much of this technology has been pioneered in the deep sea oil drilling field (think
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), which can be adapted and used ‘off label’ for military purposes. Such an ability could partially blind the enemy and limit their global situational awareness and command and control capabilities during a time of war without actually ‘kinetically’
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in a traditional sense.

The Carter can also use its underwater manipulation abilities and sensors to find things that foreign governments have lost. Not only can it examine those things up close on the sea floor, but if they are within the dimensions of the sub’s MMP bays, it can recover them and transport them to a safe place for further examination.

The Jimmy Carter can also perform passive signals and communications intelligence missions via moving in close to a country’s shoreline and utilizing its easily customizable
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. This can be as focused as searching for a single cellular phone transmission in a city, to soaking up an enemy’s electronic order of battle, including air and sea defense radar emissions and command and control communications and data exchanges.

Although all fast attack and guided missile submarines have these capabilities to varying degrees, the Carter’s modular mission center and adaptable systems allow for the installation of new, experimental sensors and command and control interfaces without heavily interrupting the boat’s normal operations or demanding long in-port modification timelines.

Not enough space for whole article go check the rest of it out.
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I wish that I would have never known this. Some things I wish were kept secret. Except it doesn't tell the enemy much. But let's them know it's there. And also hope it makes them worried about the shit that they don't tell us about.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
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By
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on April 23, 2015 at 2:35 PM
Strykers-2CR-Romania.jpg

Stryker vehicles from the Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Romania.

Amidst
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, one of the last US combat units
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, the
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, has asked for bigger guns. The
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is already setting aside money for the urgent upgrade, which the Army staff officially approved yesterday in a memo obtained by Breaking Defense:


In brief, the 2nd Cavalry wants some 81 of its eight-wheel-drive
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infantry carrier vehicles fitted with 30 millimeter automatic cannon. 30 mm is more than twice the caliber of the 12.7 mm machineguns those Strykers currently mount. It’s actually a bigger weapon than the notoriously destructive 25 mm chaingun on the much heavier
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infantry carrier.

Adding a 30 mm weapon won’t make Strykers into tanks: An M1 Abrams’ main gun is a whopping 120 mm. But there are physical limits on what a 20-30 ton wheeled vehicle can accommodate. The Army spent years trying to fit a 105 mm cannon on a Stryker chassis, the
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(MGS). By contrast, 30 mm is a manageable size that would give the Strykers significant killing power against other light armored vehicles, such as Russian
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.

“MGS was a failure, which is why they stopped producing them,” one Hill staffer told me. “That said, MGS is better than nothing in terms of fire support. These [proposed] 30mm remote weapon stations help quite a bit.”

The 2nd Cavalry wants the weapons because it’s the Army’s frontline force in Europe. There are only two US combat brigades still based on the continent, the 2nd Cav in Vilseck, Germany and the
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in Vicenza, Italy, a light infantry formation with very few vehicles of any kind and nothing as heavy as a Stryker. The Army has no heavy tank forces permanently stationed in Europe anymore, which the House Armed Services Committee has decried as “short-sighted.”

Since Russia seized Crimea, both the 2nd Cavalry and the 173rd Airborne have deployed to the
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s to deter aggression and reassure those small, exposed NATO allies. (The 173rd has even trained some Ukrainian forces). Just a month ago, a 60-Stryker task force of the 2nd Cavalry conducted
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back from the Baltics to Germany by way of Poland and the Czech Republic. The maneuver showed off the Stryker vehicles’ impressive mobility: As wheeled vehicles, they do better on long road marches than tracked tanks, although their performance is worse off-road. But clearly the Army thought they were lacking in lethality — and that’s what this upgrade is intended to correct.

The bigger question: Will the Army stop at upgrading 81 vehicles in Europe, or will it eventually seek funding to install the 30 mm weapons on Strykers in
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. The memo pledges that the powerful Training and Doctrine Command (
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) will study “potential application… across the broader Stryker force.” With the national strategy emphasizing
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, the Army is increasingly looking for
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— but still heavily armed enough to fight on arrival.
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strykerIFV.jpg
The US Army has been testing for sometime now a Modification of the Stryker series of Armored Vehicles based on a Medium (30mm) caliber Kongsberg unmanned turret armed with a new variant of the MK44 Bushmaster II designated the XM813.Stryker-1-5-L.jpg
This new System has been tested on both Bradley and Strykers because it's unmanned the Turret does not penetrate the hull of the host vehicle meaning that the troop capacity is not reduced compared to more conventional turrets.
 
budgeting news:
Seapower Markup Supports US Navy Programs
The US Navy's fiscal 2016 budget submissions in general enjoy support on Capitol Hill, but questions remain about several programs and certain strategic direction aspects.

With its markup released Wednesday morning, the House Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee provided several answers about how the debate could go, showing strong backing across the board for shipbuilding and war-fighting programs.

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Key among the issues was the provision of the full Navy request for littoral combat ships and a continued insistence to maintain and improve the fleet's surface combatant capabilities.

The subcommittee approved the request for three LCS hulls, along with two destroyers and two attack submarines. The mark also would authorize money to complete LPD 28, the 12th San Antonio-class amphibious ship. Advanced funding is authorized for a third afloat forward staging base (AFSB) and the next-generation LX(R) amphibious ship.

As expected, the mark supported the nuclear refueling overhaul of the aircraft carrier George Washington, supported construction of the carriers John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) and Enterprise (CVN 80), and provided batch or incremental funding authority for CVN 81 and five more carrier refueling overhauls.

To begin funding the National Sea-Based Deterrent Fund — an account set up to provide a funding stream for the Ohio-class Replacement Program (ORP) — the subcommittee authorizes transferring $1.39 billion from research and development accounts. The fund is intended to pay for the ORP ballistic missile submarine program outside normal Navy shipbuilding accounts.

The subcommittee also expressed its support to install Virginia payload modules (VPMs) across the Block V Virginia-class submarine buy. The VPM is an additional 85-foot-long hull section containing four large Virginia payload tubes that greatly enhance the number of weapons and systems each submarine can carry.

The subcommittee continues to strongly resist Navy efforts to reduce or delay combat system modernization in cruisers and destroyers. Full funding for Aegis destroyer modernization is provided for 2016 despite the Navy's removal of five destroyer modernizations from the future years defense plan. The mark also "prohibits removing the missile defense capabilities of the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, as well as prohibiting their retirement, inactivation, or storage," according to the subcommittee's press release. Lawmakers also limited the term of cruiser overhauls to two years "to prevent unnecessary layup of these critical assets at a time of growing demand for missile defense capabilities."

The markup repeated the subcommittee's strong support for the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program to develop an aircraft "capable of deep penetrating strike in contested environments." The Navy and the Pentagon are reviewing requirements for the unmanned carrier jet program, particularly regarding an emphasis on strike or reconnaissance capabilities.

In its projection forces role, the subcommittee again expressed support for the Air Force's long-range bomber requirement. The mark also increased the Navy's Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile request from 100 to 198 missiles, "the minimum rate required to sustain the production line" at Raytheon.

The mark directs the Navy to conduct an independent assessment of the Combat Logistic Fleet's future demands, and noted the administration's "inadequate response to the requirement for a robust Coast Guard icebreaking capacity."

In remarks released with the markup, subcommittee Chairman Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., declared that "this year's Seapower and Projection Forces mark provides the resources our Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force need to meet 21st century challenges, while sustaining a robust defense industrial base and our dominance on, above, and below the sea.

"From unmanned carrier aviation, to critical Air Force strike and airlift programs, to investment in Marine Corps amphibious programs, to the next-generation undersea nuclear deterrent, this year's mark will help sustain America's power projection capabilities in the years ahead."

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., the new ranking member of the subcommittee, also issued a statement. Courtney is well-known for his support of submarine programs -- prime submarine builder General Dynamics Electric Boat is in his district - and he continued his focus on undersea warfare.

"The proposal that we will consider tomorrow makes many positive contributions to the needs of our Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Maritime Administration," Courtney said in the statement.

"I am particularly proud to have worked with Chairman Forbes on a number of provisions related to the future of our undersea fleet—an area we have worked closely together on for several years. In addition to fully supporting the ongoing two-a-year construction rate for our Virginia Class Submarines, the mark notes our bipartisan concern about the current plan to outfit only two-thirds of the Block V submarines with the Virginia Payload Module. As Navy officials have routinely testified before committee members, the VPM is the only solution available to retain the undersea strike capabilities lost when the SSGNs retire in the next decade.
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