[Senate Hearing 114-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 114-124]
NAVY FORCE STRUCTURE AND
READINESS: PERSPECTIVES
FROM THE FLEET
__________
JOINT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES
meeting jointly with
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
of the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MAY 26, 2016
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
20-792 WASHINGTON : 2017
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia RICK LARSEN, Washington
DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Vice MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
Chair HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri Georgia
PAUL COOK, California SCOTT H. PETERS, California
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana GWEN GRAHAM, Florida
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma
David Sienicki, Professional Staff Member
Phil MacNaughton, Professional Staff Member
Katherine Rember, Clerk
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman
ROB BISHOP, Utah MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York, Vice JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
Chair TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey SCOTT H. PETERS, California
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio
SAM GRAVES, Missouri
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma
Margaret Dean, Professional Staff Member
Vickie Plunkett, Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative from Connecticut, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces......... 4
Forbes, Hon. J. Randy, a Representative from Virginia, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces................. 1
Peters, Hon. Scott H., a Representative from California,
Subcommittee on Readiness...................................... 5
Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Readiness............................ 3
WITNESSES
Davidson, ADM Phillip S., USN, Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces
Command; CAPT Randy Stearns, USN, Commodore, Strike Fighter
Wing, Atlantic; CAPT Scott Robertson, USN, Commander, USS
Normandy (CG-60); CAPT Greg McRae, USN, Deputy Commander,
Submarine Squadron 6; and CAPT Paul Odenthal, USN, Commodore,
Naval Construction Group 2..................................... 7
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Courtney, Hon. Joe........................................... 46
Davidson, ADM Phillip S., joint with CAPT Randy Stearns, CAPT
Scott Robertson, CAPT Greg McRae, and CAPT Paul Odenthal... 48
Forbes, Hon. J. Randy........................................ 43
Wittman, Hon. Robert J....................................... 45
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Peters................................................... 63
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.]
NAVY FORCE STRUCTURE AND READINESS: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE FLEET
----------
House of Representatives, Committee on Armed
Services, Subcommittee on Seapower and
Projection Forces, Meeting Jointly with the
Subcommittee on Readiness, Washington, DC,
Thursday, May 26, 2016.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Randy Forbes
(chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee)
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. J. RANDY FORBES, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND
PROJECTION FORCES
Mr. Forbes. Good morning and I want to welcome members of
the Seapower and Projection Forces and Readiness Subcommittees
to our hearing today.
Before we begin, we just have two logistical matters that I
would like to take care of. The first one is I would like to
ask unanimous consent that nonsubcommittee members be allowed
to participate in today's hearing after all subcommittee
members have had an opportunity to ask questions.
Is there any objection?
Without objection, nonsubcommittee members will be
recognized at the appropriate time for 5 minutes.
In addition to that, I would like to ask unanimous consent
that Admiral Davidson be allowed to make an opening statement
on behalf of the Navy and the respective Navy witnesses.
Is there objection?
Without objection, it so ordered.
As I mentioned, we welcome everyone here today to this
joint subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces and
Readiness Subcommittees at our hearing today.
I want to offer a special welcome to our full committee
chairman, Mr. Thornberry. As everyone knows, Chairman
Thornberry has been the leader of our ongoing efforts to
mitigate our military readiness challenges and I want to thank
him for his leadership and for being here today to hear about
the United States Navy.
This hearing follows a congressional delegation and
listening session that members of our committee conducted on
Monday aboard Naval Station Norfolk, the aircraft carrier
Dwight D. Eisenhower and the destroyer, the USS McFaul.
While in Norfolk we had a chance to meet with a number of
Navy sailors, including the witnesses that are testifying
before us today.
Today we will have Captain Scott F. Robertson, the
commanding officer of the USS Normandy. Captain, thank you for
being here.
We have Captain Randy Stearns, the commodore and Strike
Fighter for Wing Atlantic. Captain, thank you for joining us.
We have Captain Gregory McRae, the deputy commander of
Submarine Squadron 6. And Captain, thank you for joining us.
And Captain Paul Odenthal, commander of the Naval
Construction Group 2. Captain, we thank you for joining us
today.
I am also particularly delighted to have Admiral Davidson,
the commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, who will make
an opening statement this morning.
We have a special guest with us here in the audience. That
is Captain Robertson's wife, Kelly. Last year Captain Robertson
and his crew went away for a whopping 313 days, including their
wedding anniversary and likely many other important family
events.
Today his duty once again called him away from home on his
anniversary, and at least on this anniversary I want to get him
out of the doghouse a little bit, and I want to thank Kelly for
her service and her support for her husband and to recognize
all the sacrifices she and our other Navy spouses and families
make for our country.
I am grateful to everyone for being here, but I want to
thank the captains in particular for first giving us their
perspectives in Norfolk and then coming up to Washington to
share them with additional members.
I think it is very important that we hear not just from
senior Navy leaders, but from the operators and warfighters
like yourselves, who are dealing with readiness challenges
firsthand.
When we met with our witnesses down in Norfolk, one of them
characterized his current role and responsibility as the
commander of a Navy unit as, quote: ``managing scarcity.''
Our sailors do not sign up to manage scarcity. They sign up
to defend their families, their homes, their country. They sign
up to defend our families, our home, and our country.
Every day our sailors have a duty to defend America. It is
time that we as Americans realize we have a duty to defend
them. Hopefully, we take a major step in that this morning.
I think that the term is a very good description of the
challenges that our men and women in uniform and the civilians
that support them are dealing with across the fleet and in the
Navy sister services.
While I firmly believe that the United States Navy is still
the world's best, I am concerned about shortfalls in force
structure and readiness and the trend lines that we can see.
Over the past year we have heard from the Chief of Naval
Operations that we are returning to an era of great power
competition in which our maritime superiority will be contested
by other countries.
We have heard about ship deployments growing from 5\1/2\ to
as many as 10 months in length.
We have heard about carrier gaps in Asia and the Middle
East. We have heard that shortfalls in the number of amphibious
ships are driving the Marines to consider deploying aboard
foreign ships.
And we have heard that only one in four of our strike
fighters is fully mission capable and ready for combat.
And finally, we have received data showing that next year
around the world we will only be able to fulfill 56 percent of
our commanders' requests for carriers, 54 percent of the
requests for amphibious groups, 42 percent of the requests for
submarines, and 39 percent of the requests for cruisers and
destroyers.
The conclusion that I think we should all be drawing from
what we hear is that we are not currently providing our Navy
with the resources it needs to do what we ask, at least not
without burning out our ships and our planes and our sailors
and undermining our long-term readiness.
As members of these subcommittees know, the Navy will
always answer the Nation's call. It always has.
If we require it, the Navy can and will run its ships and
sailors ragged and send them into battle without all the
weapons and training and maintenance they should have.
But we do not want to do that. We want to take care of our
men and women in uniform and maintain peace through strength
with a Navy that is robust and ready to deter potential
aggressors. We never ever want a fair fight.
In our witnesses' prepared statement, it says that we are
recovering from our lowest readiness point in many years. As a
Congress, we have the responsibility to provide and maintain a
Navy, but I believe that the resources we have been allocating
to that critical function of government have been woefully
inadequate.
Today I hope to hear from both senior Navy leaders and our
operators and warfighters what that means for our Navy and for
our national security so that our perspectives and insights can
guide our decisions in days and years ahead.
With that, I now turn things over to the gentleman from
Virginia, the chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, my good
friend, Chairman Wittman, for any opening remarks that he might
have.
Rob.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes can be found in the
Appendix on page 43.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
Mr. Wittman. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
your leadership. Chairman Thornberry, thank you. Ranking Member
Courtney and Ranking Member Bordallo, we deeply appreciate all
the efforts here.
Gentlemen, thank you. Thanks so much for your leadership
and your distinguished service to our Nation and all of the
things that you do to make sure that our Navy and our Marine
Corps have the things that they need when asked to go into
harm's way.
Every service branch we know today is suffering from
readiness deficits and we know that those shortfalls in
training and equipment have serious consequences for our
warfighters.
This hearing will give us the opportunity to hear from the
men and women on the ground, in the air, and on the water who
deal with the devastating effects of our readiness shortfalls
on a daily basis.
If Congress is to address the obstacles that successive
cuts in defense spending have posed, we need a clear,
unadulterated view of the challenges our forces are facing.
The testimony that you will provide today will give us an
invaluable view in that regard.
We are looking into the challenges ahead and these are the
ones we see as our fleets dwindle and as our sailors and their
families suffer under the strain of less training and longer
deployments.
In March, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michelle
Howard testified before the Readiness Subcommittee that the
Navy is still paying down the readiness debt we accrued over
the last decade. And to the Senate Armed Services Committee,
she said that sequestration is the greatest threat to our
future readiness. It has a ripple effect for us throughout the
years.
Today our subcommittees would like to hear from you, our
Nation's operational leaders, about maintenance, status of our
equipment, the operational availability of our ships, aircraft
and weapons systems and, perhaps the most importantly, the
obstacles you face as you train our sailors to meet the
challenges ahead.
Gentlemen I thank you for your service. As a reminder of
what we all are faced with, tomorrow at the United States Naval
Academy, we will commission over 1,000 new naval officers, both
as ensigns in the Navy and as second lieutenants in the Marine
Corps. All of us have an obligation, not only for those
officers but those that enlist in the Navy and Marine Corps to
make sure that we never forget what it takes to provide for
them the proper training, the proper equipment that they need
to, as Chairman Forbes said, to have overwhelming superiority
so they can fight to victory and come home safe.
That is our unending obligation both here as elected
leaders and for you as our military leaders. We all take that
challenge seriously and I know, I know and am confident that we
will face that challenge. Gentlemen, thank you so much for
joining us, and Mr. Chairman, with that I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the
Appendix on page 45.]
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Congressman Whitman. Now it is my
privilege to recognize my partner on the Seapower and
Projection Forces Subcommittee the ranking member, Mr. Joe
Courtney.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOE COURTNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CONNECTICUT, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND
PROJECTION FORCES
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Wittman, for
holding today's hearing on Navy force structure and readiness
and for both of your leadership in terms of what has been a
very strong bipartisan effort both in Seapower and Readiness
that became part of the House defense authorization bill.
I have a written statement which I am going to enter for
the record because we want to hear from the witnesses this
morning. In quick summary--this year we have heard a refrain
from combatant commanders, whether in the Pacific, whether it
is Admiral Harris, General Breedlove, in the North Atlantic--
again, really stressing the need for more Navy assets to be
deployed. Admiral Harris with no prompting said he needs more
ships and submarines, period. General Breedlove said it best,
``We are playing zone defense in terms of what is happening
with a resurgent Russian navy.''
This year we came out with a very strong mark in terms of
shipbuilding. Ten ships as the chairman noted, the largest
boost since the Reagan era in terms of investment in
shipbuilding, but as all the witnesses know, that is the long
game. You don't build a sub overnight or a carrier overnight or
a destroyer. And in the meantime we have got to focus on what
is really the focus of today's hearing, which is that we have
got to have the operational availability and that means looking
at something that sometimes doesn't get quite the banner
headlines in the way that maybe shipbuilding does. And that is
obviously, making sure that the readiness investments and
systems are in place so that when Admiral Harris or General
Breedlove is putting out a demand signal that the country can
respond to it.
Again, there is no better testimony than the folks that are
here at the table this morning. Admiral Davidson it is good to
see you again after our visit last year, earlier. Captain
Stearns, thank you again for the CODEL [congressional
delegation] that we organized. And again, Congress has some
skin in this game as well. CRs [continuing resolutions] do not
make this problem any easier and I hope we are going to hear
from the witnesses about ways that we can help from the
legislative branch in terms of making sure there is that
horizon, so that, again, these critical needs are gonna be
satisfied.
Again, I want to thank both chairmen for organizing this
important hearing today. Ask that my written statement be
entered for the record and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Courtney can be found in the
Appendix on page 46.]
Mr. Forbes. Without objection, all the written statements
will be entered as part of the record, and with that we are
privileged to recognize now the gentleman from California, Mr.
Peters, who is standing in as the ranking member for the
Readiness Subcommittee today. Scott, thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. SCOTT H. PETERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Chairman
Wittman as well, and Mr. Courtney. I thank you all for making
yourselves available again today.
In July, 2010 these two same subcommittees convened to
discuss Navy readiness and 2 years have passed since the USS
Chosin, which is now homeported in San Diego undergoing
modernization, and the Stout had been deemed unfit for combat
operation because of the readiness condition.
In March 2009, the Readiness Subcommittee examined issues
the Navy faced in sustaining its surface warships with their
expected life and beyond. The Navy reported at that hearing
that it had been taking material steps to address gaps in ship
maintenance funding and to assess ship material conditions.
So today, over 6 years later, we are continuing to discuss
not only the readiness concerns of the Navy's non-nuclear
service ships, but also shortfalls in naval aviation,
expeditionary forces, and other aspects of readiness. As
members of the subcommittees heard on Monday in Norfolk, the
Navy now faces readiness concerns with its submarine force as
well. A lack of readiness resonates with our ability to keep
Americans safe and confront new and dynamic threats across the
globe. And as our Navy executes its pivot to the Pacific, while
still carrying out operations against the Islamic State, there
has never been a more crucial time to have a well-equipped,
well-trained force.
These readiness issues of course as Mr. Courtney said did
not arise overnight. What the Navy is experiencing now, and
what the subcommittees are attempting to fix in the 2017
defense bill, are the consequences of years of high operational
tempo experienced by a smaller fleet--again, happy anniversary.
I think it is an appropriate time to recognize high operational
tempo--and fewer aircraft with experienced sailors and civilian
employees to sustain them.
The Navy is grappling with these past decisions that reduce
waterfront maintenance organizations and shore infrastructure,
process changes to force-wide ship maintenance practices and
training processes, and the failed Optimum Manning Initiative
in efforts to derive efficiencies instead of pursuing and
insisting upon effectiveness.
So the Navy began responding to declining material
readiness conditions by increasing manning, improving training,
providing enduring technical oversight of maintenance, and
reestablishing clear lines of authority and accountability, but
the efforts were rendered less effective as Mr. Courtney
suggested by the sequestration in 2013.
So when coupled with reductions in skilled personnel at
aviation depots and fleet shipyards, severe challenges in
obtaining spare parts for legacy systems, late receipt of funds
due to the failure of Congress to reach a budget agreement, and
high operational tempo required by the complex security
environment, to put it lightly, it is not surprising we are
dealing with what some call a readiness crisis.
In an era of new and dynamic threats it is our
responsibility to navigate these challenges and provide for a
21st century force that has the tools and capabilities to
respond to security threats anywhere, anytime, and I welcome
the opportunity today to hear from our witnesses about some of
the challenges you are facing. And I encourage my colleagues to
seriously consider the long-term financial commitments that
accompany the readiness solutions that we are proposing in the
fiscal year 2017 authorization bill, which will soon go to
conference with the Senate.
Thank you again for being here gentlemen, and thank you Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you Congressman Peters and Admiral
Davidson, you have got a lot on your shoulders. The whole Fleet
Forces Command, a lot of men and women that are depending upon
you, including the entire country. We appreciate so much all
that you do and we appreciate being here today and we would
love to turn the floor over to you now for any comments that
you can offer to the committee.
STATEMENT OF ADM PHILLIP S. DAVIDSON, USN, COMMANDER, U.S.
FLEET FORCES COMMAND; CAPT RANDY STEARNS, USN, COMMODORE,
STRIKE FIGHTER WING, ATLANTIC; CAPT SCOTT ROBERTSON, USN,
COMMANDER, USS NORMANDY (CG-60); CAPT GREG McRAE, USN, DEPUTY
COMMANDER, SUBMARINE SQUADRON 6; AND CAPT PAUL ODENTHAL, USN,
COMMODORE, NAVAL CONSTRUCTION GROUP 2
Admiral Davidson. Thank you Chairman Forbes. Chairman
Thornberry, Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Courtney, Ranking
Member Peters----
Mr. Forbes. Admiral, these mikes are a little funny. You
might want to pull it up close so that everybody can hear.
Admiral Davidson [continuing]. And distinguished members of
the Seapower and Projection Forces and Readiness Subcommittees,
good morning, and thank you for your active interest in fleet
readiness. I appreciate your comments very, very much. It is my
distinct pleasure to introduce these witnesses today, these
exceptional captains you see before you here to testify about
our Navy.
These are just a very few of the extraordinary men and
women we call upon to lead our Navy at the tactical level, and
I think you will be impressed. Most importantly, they are in
the front lines of fleet readiness. As a fleet commander I am
charged by the Chief of Naval Operations to make the fleet
ready. That is to say, prepared. To do the mission the Congress
has given us in law, ``To be prepared for prompt and sustained
combat incident to operations at sea.''
In my book there can only be one standard for that. It has
to be ready, prepared to fight and win. We know the American
people expect nothing less, and frankly, we expect nothing less
of ourselves. I won't belabor adversary and threat details as
testified to you by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the CNO
[Chief of Naval Operations], and numerous other experts. They
have made clear the evolving international security
environment, the nations and actors who would challenge the
world order--Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and terror
groups like ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and Al
Qaeda. These countries and entities, in different forms, are
developing and procuring advanced and/or asymmetric systems to
hold allies and partners at risk, to deny us our sea control in
the Navy, and to threaten our homeland and our interests.
In that light, the business of making the fleet ready to
fight and win is much more difficult than the bumper sticker
allows. Key to it is the prompt and sustained standard we
receive from the law. To truly understand whether the fleet is
ready, it must be understood that the Navy has to be able to do
three things. First, we have to be able to rotate the fleet out
on routine deployments around the globe. Second, we have to be
able to surge the fleet in crisis. That means conflict, war.
That means more ships, more squadrons, more submarines, and
more groups forward in times of significant contingency or war,
and then we have to be able to fix it and reset it after that.
That means re-equip it and get it ready for the next possible
contingency and at the same time continue to rotate it out on
routine deployments.
And third, we have to be able to maintain and modernize the
fleet to ensure it is functional, viable, indeed credible,
meaning ready to fight and win, until its expected end of
service life. Sometimes that is decades in the future.
These three components of our readiness are all
intertwined, and yet all in tension with one another. If we
keep too many of our capabilities forward on routine
deployments, we may not have the numbers we need to surge in
crisis or the time to maintain and modernize these capabilities
necessary for future success and future generations of sailors.
Conversely, if too many of our ships and aircraft are in
maintenance and modernization then the combatant commanders do
not have the credible combat power needed to deter and dissuade
potential adversaries and competitors to assure our allies and
partners or to protect our maritime security and the homeland.
Too much of one thing typically results in too little of
another. Nevertheless, we must do those three things to meet
the prompt and sustained standard established by title 10. That
said, if there are not enough resources to do all three at
once, we will typically favor our readiness for deployment over
the two priorities. I owe that to our sailors today, and I am
doing precisely that this year, 2016.
Let me give you an example.
Earlier this week many of you visited the aircraft carrier
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is 39 years old. In just a few
days it will be on its way for its fifth routine deployment in
the last 7\1/2\ years. In just a few weeks, they will be flying
strikes in combat against ISIS.
It is the fleet's job to ensure those sailors in Ike and
her escorts go on deployment with everything they might
possibly need: food, fuel, repair parts, ordnance, the
aircraft, the medical support, and, most importantly, the
training to succeed in their mission and return home safely,
and that is the mandatory metric, to succeed on the mission.
Our first priority is to make sure our deployed and
deploying forces like Ike are fully ready, that they have
everything they need to execute combat operations and succeed.
We do a good job at this, but it is not without cost.
For example, if I have to ensure that 10 like strike
fighters are in a single squadron on that aircraft carrier and
they need the same capability, I will tax units that are back
here at home--those designed to be later in for surge or those
in maintenance and modernization of aircraft to make sure that
we have the requisite aircraft forward. If I need 10 forward, I
do routinely operate 4 aircraft in squadrons in the rear.
If a ship forward with Ike strike group, for example,--as
would any of the forward-deployed ships either homeported,
overseas or deployed from CONUS [continental United States], if
they need a part that is not immediately available in their
stores or not immediately available in their supply system, I
will tax a ship back in CONUS for that part, either out of
their stores or, if I have to, I will take it directly out of a
combat system to deliver to that ship forward.
Ike strike group is ready to go, and I am committed to
ensure that they are ready while they are forward. And all of
it--the equipment, the ordnance, the sailors and their training
to make them ready for deployment--that is investing in the
``prompt'' part of the mission that you have given us in law.
The ``sustained'' part--sustainment means building deep
preparedness. Our ships, squadrons, and other tactical units
must be ready to be surged in time of conflict as I said or
maintaining and modernizing for the threats of the future and
to deliver on the exceptional return of investment in your
Navy.
Ideally, the fleet maintains reliability in its platforms
and proficiency in its sailors by sustaining readiness in its
forces fresh off deployment. Additionally, we would endeavor to
build readiness for full-spectrum conflict, great power
competitors, as the CNO cited earlier this year, by doing more
intense training for longer throughout the life of any ship or
squadron.
After all, these are the forces we would use to surge in
conflict and war. Maintenance and modernization is just as
important. Ike provides relevant combat power today 39 years
after her commissioning because we invested in maintenance and
upgrades throughout the years including refueling the reactors,
modernizing the combat systems aboard, and putting new aircraft
in its air wing.
My favorite metric: during Ike's nuclear refueling overhaul
more than a dozen years ago, we removed more than 5,000 tons of
wire--5,000 tons of wire--and replaced it with fiber relevant
to the capabilities needed in our combat systems for today and
tomorrow. That investment in time and money is important.
For me, in 2016, the fleet is challenged to provide that
kind of sustained mission. We are $848 million short between
Admiral Swift and the Pacific Fleet and myself of the
operations and maintenance requirements. That is just 2 percent
of the readiness requirement across the whole of Navy readiness
and the fleet will have to make--take action to meet our
financial responsibilities.
The shortfall developed based on a handful of emerging
challenges this calendar year--this fiscal year. Excuse me.
First, we extended Truman strike group on deployment to support
strike operations against ISIS. Second, we have observed
increased costs with several aircraft: older F/A-18 A through D
Hornets, both in the Navy and Marine Corps, and Marine Corps
CH-53s and MV-22 Ospreys.
The cost to maintain these aircraft this year is higher
than modeled and anticipated. These aircraft are simply older
than we anticipated when we bought them. We have been using
them longer. Also, we are working hard to improve the supply
and availability of repair parts with Navy F/A-18E/F Super
Hornets to improve their flight line readiness this year.
Third, ship maintenance growth and execution has exceeded
the planned and budgeted costs over a year ago. As a result,
the fleet will have to take some risk. That is to say, incur
consequences, if they are not mitigated later, for the longer
term. Across both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets we will delay
four surface ship availabilities and one submarine major
maintenance availability from the fourth quarter of this fiscal
year into next year.
We will also reduce three smaller, less intensive
maintenance periods for two amphibious ready groups and one
carrier strike group. That is an additional dozen ships. We
will reduce the flying hours associated with one of our carrier
air wings that is not expected to deploy in the next 2 years as
well.
Delaying these maintenance periods and pressing them into
the next fiscal year--fiscal year 2017--the budget currently
under consideration is not optimal, but it affects the smaller
number of ships. I will not embark on a path that partially
accomplishes all availabilities across the entire fleet. That
is a dangerous practice that rapidly builds maintenance and
capability backlogs that are difficult to recover.
Indeed, we are digging out from that sort of policy more
than a decade ago.
As you can see, readiness in the Navy is a very complex
discussion. Some of the risks, the consequences, if not
mitigated later, are borne out with reduced training and
readiness levels for our surge forces. Some of our risk is
carried in longer-term sustainment with maintenance delayed for
our ships and our submarines.
Accepting these risks means accepting less readiness across
the whole of the Navy, less capacity to surge in crisis and
wartime, and perhaps living with the reduced readiness on our
ships and submarines that would keep them from reaching the end
of their service lives. In either case, recovering from these
situations will cost us more in time and money in the future.
These are the fleet readiness challenges and our plans to
execute today in fiscal year 2016. To provide the additional
context from fleet operators, we have assembled before you a
panel of our--four of our commanders: Captain Stearns,
commanding officer of Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic. He leads
all F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet training and readiness on
the East Coast.
Captain McRae, he is the deputy commodore of Submarine
Squadron 6. He oversees the training and preparation of seven
attack submarines and their crews.
Captain Odenthal, commodore of Naval Construction Group 2.
He heads up our Atlantic Seabees and underwater construction
teams.
And Captain Robertson is the commanding officer of USS
Normandy, fresh off an around-the-world deployment last year--
the Navy's first with our Navy's integrated fire control-
counter air capability--an extraordinary capability; and his
ship is in maintenance today.
Like all of us, they are committed to ensuring the best
possible readiness in the fleet for today and for our future.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
[The joint prepared statement of Admiral Davidson, Captain
Stearns, Captain Robertson, Captain McRae, and Captain Odenthal
can be found in the Appendix on page 48.]
Mr. Forbes. Admiral Davidson, we thank you again for your
service. Thank you for your opening remarks and now the
subcommittee can address our questions to each of our four
witnesses that are here. And Captain Stearns, I would like to
start with you.
We all know that sometimes we talk in a lot of military-
ese. We use terms and I remember one time coming home from
dinner with the CNO my wife looked at me and she said, ``Do you
guys ever talk in English?''
Well, we want to try and talk a little bit in English today
and one of the things that you are the commander of a strike
fighter wing. A lot of power under your control and what you
are doing but I want to--oftentimes we realize that when you go
places you are trying to train and prepare in good times so
that you are able to fight in bad times if they occur.
I am very concerned about the statistic that I am hearing
that only one out of four of our aircraft are capable--fully
mission capable and ready for combat. I know in the good times
you can say we have got enough out there. You heard Admiral
Davidson talk about surge.
A lot of people listening to this at home don't know what
surge means but if you have to go into that fight, what does it
mean to you when you only have one out of four of your backups
ready for combat?
Captain Stearns. One of--that number fully mission capable
and just to define the term here as we use it in the Hornet
community is--means that jet has everything it needs to go to
war. So that one-in-four number that you put out now, that is
our--that is our deployed forces like Admiral Davidson said as
well. So that is the--that one in four is currently deployed
right now. That other three in four are the aircraft that are
back in the maintenance phase or going through another FRP
[Fleet Response Plan].
So what that means is if you wanted to surge more than what
we have, and we talked about our four air wings that are out
right now including one on the West Coast and we have one in
work-ups now and then one ready to go, which was the Ike down
there and the Truman--those are fully manned. But if you wanted
to pull back it would take me over 6 to 12 months to get
another air wing back here of that three in four aircraft
backup ready to go.
Mr. Forbes. So explain the impact of that and the risk that
it has to you. If you are in a conflict--obviously if you are
not in a conflict it is not going to matter that much--but if
you are in a conflict based on our op plans, how important are
those planes to you and how risky is it that you would have to
wait 6 to 12 months to get them?
Captain Stearns. It is--at the bottom of the--there is no
chance of getting those ready. The metric I had when I was a
department head, just to put it into context, was about a 90-
day surge. We could have the parts and aircraft to get an air
wing out and a squadron up if we actually resourced them out in
90 to 120 days. It is going to take three times as long to get
that out now.
So it means that there is nothing to pull from in the back.
We have already pulled everything forward. There is nothing
left in the----
Mr. Forbes. So if you are in a fight, you do not have
anything to pull from in the back right now and it would be 6
to 12 months before you would have it ready to----
Captain Stearns. As of today, we don't have that surge
capacity right now.
Mr. Forbes. The other thing that I would like to talk about
and Admiral Davidson mentioned taxing planes back here, taxing
ships and another word for that is I think you sometimes use
the term cannibalization of our aircraft, which is basically
taking parts off of one aircraft to be able to use to fix the
other ones to fight.
Well we already have a situation where three out of four of
our aircraft are not fully mission capable to back you up if
you need it. Tell me about this term we use is ``hangar
queens'' or cannibalization. Are you using a plane in the
hangar now that you are taking parts off of to put on other
parts to fly?
Captain Stearns. That is a regular occurrence and
cannibalization, or taking parts off that, is our last resort.
We work through the supply system and, as you know, our A
through Ds are stuck in the depot because of unforeseen
utilization. Our Super Hornets--we have had parts problems over
the past 3 years, starting in 2012 with sequestration and there
were other--some other factors that played into that as well.
But we have never caught up and absolutely--so what that
means to you is that that is the last resort. We are pulling
that off an aircraft and I was the one talking about managing
scarcity and that is exactly what I am talking about, managing
scarcity.
I have to decide what squadron--I have three squadrons
right now that I had to call and tell, ``Hey, be ready; you are
the donors for the Truman extension.'' That was not paid for.
That was unforeseen. That is a tax back here on the system as
well.
Mr. Forbes. So, Captain, let me be clear, three out of four
of your strike fighters not capable of--fully mission capable
right now, takes 6 to 12 months to get them there. But in
addition to that, what you have to do is, as the last resort,
go in planes that you have, take parts off of those planes
instead of coming from the depots or where you would have
parts, so that you can keep the planes flying that you need to
keep flying. Fair?
Captain Stearns. Fair. Fair assessment on that.
Mr. Forbes. And you are having to do that now?
Captain Stearns. Yes, sir.
Mr. Forbes. Captain McRae, one of the things that we are
very concerned about, Mr. Courtney and I, looking at the number
of attack submarines we have. We know we are going down from 52
to 41 in 2029, and I am very concerned about some of the work
that has to be done on some of our submarines.
You told us a story, I believe, about the USS Albany that
was so--and we call them availabilities, but basically it was
so--needed so much work on it, broke so much that it--the crew
never actually got to deploy. They stayed in the shipyard
basically the whole time. Is that a reference to that? Or am I
incorrect on that?
Captain McRae. Yes, sir. So what I was speaking of
specifically was the maintenance overruns that we are
experiencing in our shipyards and those overruns and depot-
level maintenance that cause us, when the ship does not return
to the fleet on time as expected, that causes us to lose what
we call operational days for that submarine and it is that loss
of operational days that has the direct impact on our ability
to execute our mission and provide the readiness that we are
required to provide.
Mr. Forbes. So during that period of time, as I understand
it, that submarine stayed in the shipyard its entire time for
that crew. Is that fair?
Captain McRae. Yes, sir. So they entered the shipyard. They
originally were scheduled to enter the shipyard, this is USS
Albany we are talking about, in October of 2013. Back at that
time we were going through sequestration and budgetary concerns
and there was a lot of instability in our funding levels moving
forward, so the decision was made to push the start of the
overhaul off 3 months, and that we actually commenced that
overhaul at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in January 2014.
Originally the overhaul was scheduled to be 28.5 months and
that estimate is based on previous execution by that shipyard
doing similar platforms, so it is an estimated calculation as
far as how long it should take based on execution--recent
execution. Prior to that, Newport News had come out in about 28
months, which is why that was selected.
Since entering the shipyard, due to resource challenges
that the shipyard has experienced due to prioritization, due to
the workforce challenges that I think you all have been briefed
on, the schedule--and I am seeing this from the squadron
perspective--the schedule continued to slide to the right,
meaning they weren't meeting their key events.
And so about every 3 months or so we would get a new
schedule that essentially continued to push timelines to the
right throughout the last 2\1/2\ years. So today, we are
looking at a 43-month overhaul for a maintenance period that
was supposed to last 28 months and the impact of that is
significant in a lot of different ways, certainly the
operational days that are lost. Those are days that we will
never recover because the hull life on that submarine is finite
and so we will never be able to recapture those days.
But it also has an impact on the other submarines that we
have and the other crews that we have and the mission that we
have to meet every day to be able to provide that resource to
the Nation. So that is what we are talking about in terms of
the overruns----
Mr. Forbes. And Captain, what was the impact of that on the
commanding officer of the Albany?
Captain McRae. So one of the stories that I had relayed
was--and I just talked to Wade just a couple days ago,
actually. So one of the tertiary effects of overruns like this
that people don't often talk about are the impact to crew and
their families.
So we are responsible for maintaining crew readiness in
terms of professional development, experience at sea,
developing them as operators, as warfighters, as leaders, and
we put a lot of focus, obviously, and emphasis on that. For a
submariner to really get trained and certified and qualified
and be war-ready, he needs to be at sea and he needs to be
operating at sea.
Many--because of the delays on Albany, many of the sailors
that have been reported--have reported in for their first sea
tour on the Albany will start and end their sea tour in the
shipyard. And what I had relayed was that sailors don't join
the submarine force to sit on a barge in a shipyard. They
really want to be on a submarine at sea. And I have seen that
throughout the last 24 years.
And so--so the impact specifically for the commanding
officer because he was in a similar situation. He began his
tour thinking that he was going to carry the ship through the
shipyard period, come out on the back end, execute all the
required certifications, inspections, prove that his team was--
was warfighting ready, execute sea trials, and then restore
that submarine to full operational capability and he was
excited to do that.
But because of the delays now, he will actually be relieved
and have his change of command with the ship still in the
shipyard. Because of that, as a part of that, he has decided to
submit his resignation and retire from the Navy rather than
continue service.
Mr. Forbes. So we lost the commanding officer of that
submarine because basically the most water he saw was probably
at the water fountains around where the ship was being fixed
and--if it has an impact on him, would it be fair to conclude
it is having an impact on the crew as well?
Captain McRae. It absolutely is. And that was one of the
things in talking to some of the officers and men that I
confirmed, was that there are other effects. So for example,
the executive officer that carried them through much of the
shipyard period did not select for--for command at sea.
The engineer that they previously had, he was by all
measure a great performer but in--at the shipyard doesn't
really have that capacity to demonstrate his warfighting
expertise. It is a challenging environment to rank against your
peers and we are a very competitive force, also did not select
for executive officer.
So I am not saying that that is the only reason they didn't
select, but I can certainly tell you that inhibiting their
ability to execute their warfighting mission at sea and become
fully proficient and qualified, certified, and run those crews
and do those missions certainly inhibits their professional
development and their advancement in the service.
Mr. Forbes. Captain Robertson, I want to ask you a personal
question and we get to do that here, you know, fortunately. If
Admiral Davidson asked you to do something, I know based on
your professionalism, you are going to salute and say, yes,
sir, and you are going to go do it.
If you have to go do it, my suspicion is Kelly is going to
be a supportive wife and say, you know, go do it and I am going
to keep the home fires burning. You have missed a lot of
anniversaries. We talked about some of them today.
Even aside from you, tell me the impact on the men and
women who serve under you when we stretch these deployments
from 5 months, as they were about 8 years ago, to 7, 8, 9, 10
months where some of them are going.
What is the real life impact to them, and just as Captain
McRae talked about people at some point in time saying I have
got enough, whether it is the officer of the submarine or
whether it is the crew.
What is the real life impact to those men and women, both
that serve under you, but you have served with throughout these
years when they are asked to give up another anniversary,
another baseball game, another birthday?
Captain Robertson. Sure. Happy to answer that question. It
is kind of complex strictly because, you know, when you talk
about a junior sailor experiencing a deployment for the very
first time, there is no expectation of what it----
Mr. Forbes. And include in that the impact to their family,
too.
Captain Robertson. Absolutely. Absolutely. There is no
doubt and actually Kelly and I were just talking about this
very fact yesterday how we have seen as our deployments have
gotten longer where they originally were 6 months and now just
finishing a 9\1/2\-month on deployment.
We felt very fortunate we were mature enough to be able to
absorb that and--but our junior sailors certainly, you know,
wind up taking the brunt of that. It is a lot of missed
birthdays and anniversaries and sporting events and recitals.
So there is no doubt that there certainly is a personal, a
real personal challenge with these long deployments and it
certainly stresses the families. But I have to also add,
though, that our sailors, when they know in advance what their
deployment length is going to be, they can prepare for it and
my--my crew knew in advance we were doing a long deployment. So
we were really able to condition the families, make sure the
infrastructure was there for them to best prepare them as much
as we could for this extra long deployment.
So--and as such, I was rewarded with good morale on my ship
and a pretty good morale back home. But you can't overstate,
you know, you can't make--forget the humanistic impact of
everything that they do miss.
Mr. Forbes. We were told when we actually had lunch on
Monday with some of the individuals there that, you know, their
families actually get ribbons that they start putting up and
cutting as they are looking 60 days out and 30 days out and
then when all of a sudden those deployments are changed, that
it has an enormous impact on the children and the families. Is
that your experience or----
Captain Robertson. Absolutely. I do have--I do have
experience with a short notice extension on deployment and when
I was a commander in command we were scheduled for a 6\1/2\
month deployment. And just prior to us departing, out-chopping
or leaving the theater of operation to return home, we were
extended for another 4 weeks.
So--and that was a challenge from a morale perspective.
Certainly it was easier for me to build morale on the ship,
hey, our Navy needs us, our country needs us on mission. I
certainly know that it was much bigger impact back home. Return
parties, vacations planned, reunions, so that was--so a change
in schedule is really hard on our families.
Mr. Forbes. Chairman Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Chairman Forbes. I want to drill
down a little bit more on Chairman Forbes' question, Captain
Stearns, about aircraft.
We talked about the availability of those aircraft, but
what I want to look is how we generate that availability and
obviously there at Oceana you deal not only with the aircraft
availability, but also with depots and we have gone from a
backlog in the depots of about 11 aircraft now up to 200
aircraft. So that pipeline is a significant issue.
Throughput hasn't changed. I know that we have made a lot
of plans to try to manage that, but if that capacity and
throughput hasn't changed, that still creates a situation that
we are dealing with that we have E-2Ds that don't have spare
parts, so we are going through all of those machinations trying
to figure out a way through this, you know, great recovery
plans in place.
But I think as you pointed out, you know, time is the
limiting factor there. But time is not only a limiting factor,
but--but the throughput, the capacity there in our depots. How
do we--well first of all, how does that backlog in aircraft
affect operational readiness? And you pointed to that a little
bit. But I want to know how--how does it affect things in the
long term and what do we have to do to be able to shorten that
time period?
You pointed out to it--to now it being three times as long
as it would otherwise have been. How does it affect things
today? Let's say a scenario where we have to push the button
and it is more than just those forces forward deployed and--and
I want to understand a little bit more about that--you alluded
to earlier--but then what do we need to do to make sure that we
are able to generate the throughput to as quickly as we can
recover this lost readiness in these--availability of these
aircraft?
Captain Stearns. And--thanks for the question. So there are
two reasons why the depots are--are backlogged now and that is
wartime utilization and also the fact of the delay in our JSF
[Joint Strike Fighter] that we had planned on having here as
well.
So that forced us into an extension of our A through Ds. So
to put it into perspective, Navy has 35 F-18 squadrons, east,
west coast, Japan. Five of those are of the older legacy
aircraft, the A through Ds as well, and the other 30 are Super
Hornets.
So they are in the--they are backlogged. It is--the depots
were never set up to do what we call high flight hour which
means essentially we are extending them past the 6-hour--8,000-
hour to 10,000-hour life that they were ever expected to fly,
just to meet the operational demand.
So now they are forced into a 3-year lead time just to make
the parts for these kits to get in there and it is all a
capacity problem. The jets coming out the back side are a great
product that our civilian workforce puts out. They can only do
so much because they were never set up to do that.
So that is the risk for that and right now I have four of
my legacy--four of my five legacy squadrons in a FRP right
now--in a cycle to be deployed or not and I have to make some
of those older aircraft that are--probably don't have enough
hours on. We are not going to use them for deployment anymore
into that squadron so they don't have the capability as they go
through there. Our goal is to get them prior to advanced phase
Air Wing Fallon.
But that leads into the Super Hornet problem that we have
transitioned about 10 squadrons of Super Hornets unexpectedly
into our--to get out of legacy and also to meet the gap for the
JSF--just to meet operational demand. So now we are taxing
hours and utilization on our attrition aircraft. Those were
meant for our attrition aircraft and Super Hornet. Now we are
utilizing that.
So when those start going into the depot in a year and a
half for normal maintenance--6,000-hour maintenance, we got to
get that legacy out of the depot right now. So it is a capacity
problem that is right back there so we will have even less
available surge force.
It translates to less available surge force to send out the
door and I am not so much worried about the A through D right
now. We have got that. It is the Super Hornet coming that as
Admiral Manazir testified I think in March we are chewing up
about 40 hours--or 40 aircraft worth of hours a month and if we
are not either buying that much or putting that much through
the depot, we are falling behind.
Mr. Wittman. How does that affect the Fleet Replacement
Squadron where you go to get aircraft and the flying hours that
have to be accrued there to make sure our pilots have the sea
time so that when they do their pre-deployment work-ups and
they get to the point to go on deployment, that they have the
full complement of flight hours to make sure? Because as you
know experience there--if you are missing it on the front end
you never can make it up on the back end. So kind of give me
your perspective on that.
Captain Stearns. Exactly right. So our Fleet Replacement
Squadron almost has the same priority as our deployed squadrons
because if we lose a day of training we are never going to get
that back so that is kind of what we call our seed corn--our
investment in the naval aviation of the future. So we--if that
stops, the train wreck happens behind it because the fleet
doesn't have pilots to get out there.
So between the east and west coast we are behind on pilot
production and WSO [weapons systems officer] production to the
fleet. So some of the fleet squadrons in the maintenance phase
are short because we got to get those guys out the door.
So it absolutely pays the price but those squadrons are
also the ones that will rob from the maintenance phase to make
sure that they have what they need to keep the training going.
But that is a very important part of the entire readiness train
is producing new folks.
Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thanks, Captain Stearns. Captain
Robertson, I want to go back to you. I noticed in your bio that
you had--you had served earlier in your career as a young
lieutenant also on the USS Normandy. So I wanted to get your
perspective.
I think you are in a unique position to give your viewpoint
on where you saw that cruiser early on--early in your career
but also younger in the life of the USS Normandy--and
operational availability, readiness elements, at that point as
of today. Give us your perspective--kind of give us a
historical perspective about what you saw then, what you saw
today, and the differences, good or bad, in what we need to
look at going into the future.
Captain Robertson. Absolutely. Thank you for the question.
It is really a night-and-day story. Returning to Normandy as a
fully modernized cruiser including the Navy integrated fire
control capability--just from a kinetic reach capability, it is
really a night-and-day story.
The current modernized cruiser comes with not only
impressive kinetic surface-to-air capability but also a huge
increase in undersea warfare for hunting or searching for
submarines or certainly for self-defense in a close-in fight
with a gun weapons system.
There is also a big difference I noticed in the hull
strengthening that comes with modernization of these cruisers.
When I was previously on Normandy out for storm evasion, we
wound up actually with a number of superstructure cracks just
to due to known flexing points in the superstructure. I just
finished an around-the-world cruise with some very significant
seas and we didn't have any of those because of the
modernization hull stiffening really reinforced those flex
points.
So it really, truly is a night-and-day difference and just
one of the point of this is, we have taken a 26-year-old ship,
and through modernization, it is currently the most powerful
ship that you have in our Navy right now so----
Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you, Captain Robertson and
Kelly, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Forbes. As we warned you at the beginning, the bells
are tolling and they are tolling for us to go vote. We--I do
not want to interrupt Mr. Courtney's questioning, so rather
than have him start, if it is okay, Joe, we will go ahead and
take a break and we are going to go vote and then we will be
back and we will begin with Mr. Courtney at that time.
Mr. Courtney. Okay.
[Recess.]
Mr. Forbes. When we left, we were getting ready to start
with Congressman Courtney's questions. And so we will recognize
Mr. Courtney now for any questions he may have.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And again, just to go back over a couple of items that came
up in the first round.
Captain McRae, I wanted to just kind of drill down a little
bit deeper on your point about the Albany delay and, you know,
what that means in terms of the submarine fleet long term.
Again, we spend a lot of time in the committee looking at
the tile charts in terms of the size of the fleet throughout
the 20s and 30s, and obviously we are going to have this
bathtub that we are doing our best to try and mitigate with
some of the shipbuilding, you know, provisions in the defense
bill this year.
But your point was is that, you know, having an extra 15
months in availability, it is not like, you know, having your
car in the garage for 15 months with a, you know, tarp over it.
But, you know, the year doesn't matter so much in that context,
you know, because it is the mileage that--you are saving on the
mileage.
But with a submarine, you don't really save on the mileage
because of just the hull life, as you mentioned. I was
wondering if you could just sort of explain that a little bit
more. So again, the record is clear about the fact that this is
just pure wasted time.
Captain McRae. Yes, sir. So, as you said, you know, the
hull lives of our submarines are carefully managed by the
Submarine Force and the Naval Sea Systems Command. And we have
varying intervals--op cycle, operational cycle intervals, and
operating intervals that we manage to ensure that those lives--
that they make it effectively to the end of life that is
designed. And as we have with some of our submarines, that we
are even capable of potentially extending those lives,
depending on what we see in our certifications as they continue
through their life cycle.
Maintenance periods, major maintenance periods we use to
reset those op intervals and op cycles. And again, it is just
something--those come with--whether it be maintenance that is
done on the submarines themselves, or if it is just inspections
and certifications that occur to certify that the material is
holding up as expected, we don't find anything surprising such
as cracks or improper welds or those types of things, and that
the submarine is--is doing the things we need it to do and
meeting its end of life.
So we will reset those periodically. The major depot avails
are obviously part of the lifecycle maintenance. And those come
at specific times in order to reset those--those intervals. It
is all very finely tuned, kind of like gears in the turbine, if
you will.
So, as the submarine maintenance period is delayed and that
cycle gets off, we start impacting not only the life cycle for
that particular submarine, but we also impact the life cycle of
the other submarines around it. So for example, USS Boise is
scheduled, because of her operating cycle and operating
interval, to enter the shipyard this past October--because of
delays to the Albany--she is lined up to go into the Norfolk
Naval Shipyard.
Because of delays on Albany, we have been extending Boise's
operational time in 3-month increments, just as we have been
doing with Albany and trying to get her out of the shipyard and
back to the fleet. As we do that, we run up against these op
cycle and op interval limits to the point where now we are no
longer capable of operating Boise at sea after this summer.
So any delays after that in her start date will be days
that Boise will sit tied up to the pier, not in depot
maintenance availability as she should be, but frankly just
waiting on the depot maintenance to begin. And so, it is almost
double the lost days if you think of it in that perspective.
We do everything we can locally to maximize the use of that
time. We have been tasked to judiciously use all resources
provided to us. And we take that charge very seriously.
And so, for example, when Albany was delayed, we pulled in
maintenance that we could get done outside of the overhaul
package into that period before she went into overhaul so that
that would just help with executing the timeline of the depot
maintenance and hopefully get her out on time. We will do the
same thing with Boise while she sits tied to the pier, waiting
on the overhaul to start.
But clearly, it is a significant impact and it is not as
simple as saying, you know, well, I have lost one submarine day
because one submarine is extended in the dry dock and in the
shipyard. It is actually much more than that.
Mr. Courtney. Right. Thank you.
And so, again, it is just--that 15-month delay is just,
again, it is just lost time for, you know, a vessel that cost
roughly about $800 million or $900 million to build back in the
day, and they are now about $2 billion a pop these days. I
mean, this is--I mean, this is a really big cost to the country
and to the taxpayer.
Captain McRae. Yes, sir. And the other thing that I would
mention is the operational aspect of that. Clearly, it affects
the operations of the Albany and the people, as we talked about
before. But again, now, the duties and requirements leveraged
on the submarine force for operational time, which is
everything from forward deployments to local operations, to
sub-on-sub certifications and training that we do to hone our
warfighting skills.
All of those things now have to be levied on the other
submarines that are available. So it crunches their schedules
such that then they lose out on what we call commanding
officer's discretionary time, the amount of time a commanding
officer has to take his ship and his crew to sea and improve
them and train them and get them up to the standards that he
needs them to be.
You know, we constantly execute, assess and improve. And
the assessment part is important. But the improvement part, the
time to go to sea and fix your ship, if you will, raise the
standards on board, that is even more important. And when we
crunch the schedules, many times that is what we see being
compressed is that commanding officer's discretionary time.
So we as a force do everything we can to defend it. But I
will tell you, we are not 100 percent successful and we many
times can't achieve the levels of commanding officer's
discretionary time that we would prefer.
Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, Captain. And I was going to
ask Captain Odenthal some questions, but I think my friend to
the left here is going to take over that. So thank you again
for being here today. I know your testimony is important to us.
And with that, I will yield back.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Courtney.
And now we recognize Congressman Peters for any questions
he may have.
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And Mr. Courtney, they don't always say I am to your left.
[Laughter.]
That is hard to do
I want to, I did have a quick question for Captain Odenthal
about the MILCON [military construction] budget. In your
written testimony, there were some--some issues that you made
about the decreases, and maybe you could tell us where you are
feeling those decreases the most. And in particular, preparing
for new ships like the LCS [littoral combat ship]--maybe you
can give us a little thumbnail about how MILCON decreases are
affecting you.
Captain Odenthal. Thank you for your question.
I am really here representing the Naval Construction Force,
and I don't have--can't really speak to the overall MILCON
budget of the Navy and how that is affecting the LCS platform.
Mr. Peters. Well, maybe then within your purview, you could
tell us kind of how the MILCON----
Mr. Forbes. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Peters. Yes, sure.
Mr. Forbes. Maybe what we could do is have that submitted
for the record, so you could get that answer, if that is okay--
--
Mr. Peters. Sure. Okay. All right.
Mr. Forbes. We will do that and see if you can get us an
answer back on that for the record. Thanks.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 63.]
Mr. Peters. Right. And then I guess I would also reference
the Career Intermission Program [CIP], the innovative program
for retention. And maybe Captains Robertson and McRae might
talk a little bit about what you are hearing. Maybe you touched
on this before with the OPTEMPO [operations tempo] and all
that, but what are some of the issues that you are having, what
do you hear from your crew about the reason that they--maybe
the number one reason that they don't serve longer?
Captain Robertson. Well, thank you for your question.
Speaking just from within my own lifelines, within the
ship, you know, we are really starting to groom a very
competitive force with the sailors that we do have. And so,
we--we weigh performance very heavily. And so there is really
an onus on the sailors and a desire to really perform. Because
if you don't perform, you are not even going to have the option
to actually be able to stay in.
We are looking for sailors that perform at a high level.
That really goes to making sure we have a very talented and
very capable force.
So, the sailors that do want to get out, you know, I have
actually done a number of these over the last couple of months,
interviewing them. And none of them are getting out due to
dissatisfaction with what they do. They love being in the Navy,
but they have other aspirations outside the Navy, or for
possible family reasons that they want to get out.
But out of all the interviews, again, within my lifelines,
I have done onboard my ship, no one is getting out because they
are unhappy with what they do.
Captain McRae. Yes, sir.
From my perspective on the submarine force, I would say
first and foremost, this is a difficult business that we do. We
ask a lot of our sailors and of our officers and we ask a lot
of our families.
But everyone, most everyone, that I encounter understands
that when they sign up. They recognize the challenge. Frankly,
for many of them that is why they choose the service, so they
can come in and essentially test themselves and provide
everything they can in support of the Nation, to really see how
they fall out when ranked against some very competitive people.
So many of us are attracted to that challenge. But over the
years it does take a toll as you know. And it does start to
have an impact on both the individual and the family. In terms
of biggest impact, though, I would tell you, at the deck-plate
level, my perspective is uncertainty and instability, whether
it be in operational schedules, whether it be in budgets and
continuing resolutions, whether it be in shifts in locations of
depot availabilities, homeport changes, last-minute
modifications, and frankly our permanent change of station
orders process, where we used to be able to get sailors' orders
a minimum of 6 months prior to their transfer, and now we are
routinely seeing that inside 3 months that they have for
themselves and their families to prepare to move, many times
cross-country--that has a significant impact and causes
significant strain for the family and the sailor.
In some cases it seems as if we write that off as a cost of
doing business based on the current fiscal uncertainty and
instability but I would argue that that shouldn't be placed on
the backs of our sailors and their families. So it is the
uncertainty and instability I think that really has the biggest
detrimental impact.
Mr. Peters. I think that is a consistent response we hear
to the budget issues and the way we have handled the budget
over the past few years, from across the spectrum of people
dealing with the military and inside the military.
I guess maybe--Captain Odenthal--just ask you, invite you
to give, sir, your take on your readiness challenges in your
particular field and also maybe comment specifically on the
overall Seabee force. It has been cut by quite a bit. Maybe you
can tell us what deployment locations are not being supported,
the cuts, how they are affecting your ability to train
effectively, retain critical skill sets.
Captain Odenthal. Thank you very much. You mentioned our
reduction in the force. So we have gone over coming out of 15
years of war, we have reduced the size of the Seabee force from
what was 21 Naval Mobile Construction Battalions, which is our
main--our main unit of action is a Naval Mobile Construction
Battalion, an NMCB. We had 21; we have reduced over the last 5
years down to 11.
Of that, nine were Active Duty battalions. We are down to 6
on the Active side, and we went from 12 down to 5 on the
Reserve side as well. So that is close to a 50 percent
reduction of the force and what we have available in Seabee
units. With that, today, the size of our force at 11 battalions
is sized properly for our response to operational plans and we
have that ability to support the plans required in major
conflict.
We also, with those units, support the combatant commanders
[COCOMs] with forward forces as well. We have gone down to--
right now we have deployed 2 battalions of Active Duty Seabees
that are always forward deployed out of the force of 6
battalions as well as about 200 Reserve Seabees that we have
mobilized at this point now, and that we use for OCO [overseas
contingency operation] missions as well in the Central Command
and Africa Command area as well.
So with that we have gone from--our ability was we would
maintain three Active Duty battalions forward deployed at any
one time as well as, during the war effort, usually a full
Reserve battalion forward for four; we are down to that 2.3 as
we say now, 2.3 battalions we keep forward.
With that we still maintain those forces across the globe.
We support those perhaps at the same sites that we did in the
past but at reduced numbers, and when it comes to the
requirements that we are asked for, for the COCOMs and the
global force management, we are supporting about 80 percent of
what is requested from the COCOMs--that additional piece goes
back to the combatant commanders and they have the ability to
look at other services as well for engineer resources.
I can't really speak to what the impact is of that unable
to support the last 20 percent that the combatant commanders
take.
Mr. Rogers. Okay. Thank you, thank you all of you for being
here.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Forbes. Since I mentioned at the outset that we have
been privileged to have the chairman of the full committee with
us throughout this hearing, and I would like to now recognize
Chairman Thornberry for any comments or questions he may have.
The Chairman. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and first I want to
thank both subcommittees, not only for today's hearing, but for
taking the time and effort to go to Norfolk and ask questions,
listen, and see for yourselves.
It is significant 10 members were concerned enough to go do
that this week. Having visited some military installations
myself, asking these questions, I believe there is no
substitute for that, so thank you for doing that and then
bringing the witnesses here. And thank you all for making the
time and effort so some of the rest of us could hear.
I am struck by the secondary effects that you all have been
describing. So you get a backlog of overhauling this ship, and
then another ship runs out of time-life while you have got it
tied up to the dock, and it is those secondary and tertiary
effects that I think are not obvious unless you ask the
questions, so that has been very helpful.
Captain Stearns, I want to ask a couple things, because a
lot of what I have done has been talking to pilots and
mechanics and so forth, a lot of whom deal with the F-18s.
Admiral Davidson said Eisenhower is about ready and it is ready
to go. At the same time, you made the point that for those
carriers that are not just about to go, they are not getting
the training that they need. I have talked to Marine pilots who
are getting less than half the number of training hours they
were supposed to get.
Some of us think about that like cramming for an exam. You
can do it the night before. Sometimes you can get by, it is
probably not the best way to study. But explain to us what that
means for pilots. Can you catch up, in the last month or two
before you deploy, for the training that you missed for the
previous months? How does that work?
Captain Stearns. Thanks for the question. How that works--
the Navy as you know works under kind of a tiered training
system. So we like to kind of feed the hours and then ramp them
all the way up to deployment. The Marines are at what is called
a T-2 level, at a constant level as well, so there are some
differences. But I will speak to the Navy's point, is
absolutely--sir, if you are not feeding the hours and letting
them fly the hours in the maintenance phase--I call it, is the
difference between currency and proficiency.
Currency we talk about 11 hours a month baseline just to be
safe to fly the aircraft. Proficiency means you are getting the
14 hours a month in maintenance phase and all the way up to
deployed phase which folks are getting. But if they are sitting
in a lengthy maintenance phase--sometimes 1, 2, 3 years waiting
for the carrier to come out--and they are getting reduced
hours, that net effect over time absolutely plays into their
experience level.
Once they get into an increased OPTEMPO, for example the
Bush coming out probably will be under a compressed cycle as
well--it takes a little bit of learning curve and there is some
risk involved in going from a slower OPTEMPO as it speeds up to
a higher OPTEMPO as the pilots get put through the training
regime.
The commanding officers, the carrier air group commanders,
the CSG [carrier strike group] admirals--they, all that is
mitigated in what we call ORM, operational risk management, and
if the skippers are told that they absolutely are not ready to
go with their pilots, in a crawl, walk or run is what you are
talking about--if they are not able to crawl first, and then
walk first, and then run--they are not going to just come out
of the gates running, so we assess that risk all the time as
well.
The Chairman. The other thing that has occurred to me as I
ask these questions is I think of readiness too narrowly. I
tend to think of it as operations and maintenance [O&M]
accounts, you train, you repair the aircraft or the ships or
whatever. But I have talked to mechanics who are working 7 days
a week trying to keep old aircraft going, and I am convinced,
and I am inviting your comment, see if you agree or disagree--
that we can cut so many people in end strength or particularly
in some specialties, that we can never get ready.
I watch the numbers as the average experience of mechanics
in the Marine Corps has been going like this. Because they are
leaving. And yet we are asking them to do more complicated
things to keep 1980s aircraft with lots of hours flying on
them. So I guess my point is end strength, or the number of
people at least, plays a role in readiness as does
modernization. Because in some ways the only way we are going
to fix some of these helicopters and airplanes is get new ones.
We can only use duct tape and baling wire so long. And so I
would invite--as you have looked at these problems, do you
agree with me, or do you have other comments, that readiness is
not just about putting more money into O&M accounts, it is
about this bigger picture?
Captain Stearns. It is absolutely correct, and what
concerns me is the maintenance phase units. We are down to
people, the people here are experienced and they are doing it
but we are at the point now where if I lose one experienced
maintenance chief or one experienced first-class--they get sick
or he has been down for some reason or leaving on deployment--I
have no reach-back. So I have to reach back into not only parts
and planes, I reach back into people. There is last-minute
saves just to get the Ike out the door of people who are--
whatever issue it is there is no depth with people.
The other part of that is maintenance phase--my squadrons,
because the depots are backed up, or they send it out earlier
than normal--these maintenance phase squadrons--it is all on
the backs of the sailors to fix these jets that should already
show up ready to go for them to train with.
So we are seeing that with the backs, and also, we talked
about cannibalization, moving parts around. Sailors are getting
really good at that now. But that is not their main job, to
show up at that, so they are forced into cannibalization, doing
parts, they are getting good at it and all but again that is
more time spent like my compatriot said, grabbing that part
from another aircraft, bringing it across that side of the
base, instead of just doing the phase maintenance for itself.
So there is a backlog. And there is a cost for all that in
maintenance phase if they spend a lot of time just building to
get their three or four jets and they use them in that phase to
train with. And I don't know if that answers your question----
The Chairman. So thank you and----
Captain McRae. Mr. Chairman, I know you directed that
question to Captain Stearns but I----
The Chairman. No, I would appreciate because--it is just
because I have spent a lot of time talking to pilots and
aircraft but obviously with submarines and ships I would like
to know.
Captain McRae. Yes, sir. I think your comments are spot on.
I absolutely agree that readiness is much bigger than
maintenance budgets and maintenance execution and modernization
and those types of things.
Maintenance also--I am sorry, the readiness also depends on
personnel obviously and you talked about end strength and for
the submarine force in particular I would tell you that our
overall submarine force health is good.
So our submarines are--manning our submarines is our
priority and we man at about 100 to 103 percent fill, which
means number of bodies on board. And we are at about 95, 96
percent fit which means that those bodies have the exact amount
of training, the proper Navy enlisted classification codes to
do the jobs that they are in, they're at the right rate rank,
those kind of things.
So we--we are doing a pretty good at that but if you look
at the submarine force billet structure over the last 15 years,
what you will see is we have reduced our ultimate number of
people in the submarine force by about 35 percent. Now we have
done that with no change in our ability to deploy submarines
and no change in the number of patrols--strategic deterrent
patrols that we execute.
And so when I was at Naval Submarine Support Center in
Kings Bay, I used to tell all the new incoming submariners that
I would argue that each of them is more important today than
any submariner ever has been to submarine readiness because if
I lose one of those members, as Captain Stearns said, I have
less and less of an ability to provide a ready spare if you
will if something happens to that individual.
So in our effort to lean the force over the last 15 years,
which we have done a very good job of that--much of that coming
from shore and so we have leaned much of our shore staffs,
which is not necessarily a bad thing. But in our effort to do
that we have gotten to the point where our bench depth--our
ability to respond to what we call unplanned losses is severely
limited.
An unplanned loss is when a sailor that reports on board a
submarine for permanent duty has to leave that submarine before
his planned rotation date due to any number of reasons. The
primary drivers in the submarine force are medical reasons
because of our stringent medical requirements; that is about 39
percent of our unplanned losses.
The second is mental health issues, ability to cope with
the stressors that come with submarine life and duty in the
submarine force.
And the third leading cause is disciplinary but that is
only about 12 percent. So much smaller.
So those three are about 82 or so percent of our total
unplanned losses. Unplanned losses in the entire submarine
force number over 700 a year from our active, operational
submarines. We lose about 700 people per year force-wide and so
we recognized many years ago that is a lot of people.
And so we really started taking a vested interest in going
after how can we improve that? Now, one of the things that we
have done--I have heard Captain Odenthal talk about the mental
health pilot program--embedded mental health. So Submarine
Squadron 6 we have generated an embedded mental health program
over the past 2 years.
The reason for that is because what we were seeing was many
of our sailors that were having difficulties adjusting to
submarine life whether it be them, their families, or anything
else, would often not talk to anybody about their issues until
they became so significant that it was too late to really help
them. And at that point they had to become a loss to the force.
We have a stress continuum. It goes from green to yellow to
orange to red and many of those sailors were presenting, and
for much of my career, sailors would present to the medical
community after they were in the orange or red sector. So it
was really too late. At that point you are in casualty control.
By embedding the mental health pilot program at the
waterfront, we have one mental health professional--a
psychiatrist and we have two corpsmen--staff members with him.
So it is a staff of three.
But by doing that what we have been able to do is develop
that trust with the command leadership, with the sailors
themselves and with that office to understand the complexities
associated with submarine life and to have those folks present
what their issues much, much earlier. When they are trending
toward yellow, possibly trending toward orange, but plenty of
time left to do something about it and continue to keep a
sailor at sea on a submarine.
The program thus far, in 2\1/2\ years, has been highly
successful and we have taken our unplanned losses in the
squadron--this is due to psychological reasons only. We had 26
in fiscal year 2012. In fiscal year 2015, we had five, so we
have reduced that number about 80 percent simply by having that
embedded mental health pilot.
And so for us, as a force, that is something that we were
pursuing establishing funding for in every submarine homeport
again to go after those unplanned losses that we can go after.
But we are doing that and we are taking all this effort because
we recognize we don't have the bench depth that we have had 10,
15 years ago to respond. And in fact, as Captain Stearns said,
we are in fact cannibalizing people just like we cannibalize
parts to get the mission done.
Captain Robertson. And if I may again just give you a
single unit perspective from my ship right now. So we have
already talked about the cannibalization. Just to give you
numbers, currently Normandy is in a maintenance phase right
now, but I have 13 parts that have been cannibalized from my
ship to support the current strike group getting ready for
deployment.
And we don't cannibalize parts that aren't mission
critical. These are all mission items that have very specific
critical function on board these ships. So 13 of those parts
have been taken from my ship over the last month and a half
just to get the strike group ready to go. Just like Admiral
Davidson says, we are going to do everything we can to make
sure that strike group is going out.
But even if I wasn't in a maintenance phase, I could not
possibly surge right now. I have had, for example, one of the
parts I had to give up was a cable harness from my SPY [SPY-1]
radar. Obviously a very critical function for an air defense
ship, so without that capability right now, I am impacted
significantly mission-wise.
Cannibalizing people--even though my manning is--I have
good fit and fill numbers on board my ship currently, I am
still having to support the deployers right now. I have four
sailors that are currently identified to go out with this
deploying strike group right now to fit--or to fill some of
those gaps right now.
So we are cannibalizing parts and people so therefore our
surge capability is certainly impacted. Last thing just real
briefly as you had highlighted what truly is readiness and you
are suggesting there is another perspective to it. There is
certainly a readiness from a readiness to take on that high-end
fight that we referenced. That training, that very specific
training that we need, to make sure that we have the confidence
and thus readiness to engage in that high-end fight is--it
needs to be developed further.
Mr. Forbes. You have all been very patient with us and we
have to impose on your patience just a little bit longer. We
have just a few more questions. Let me just be clear about one
thing. Your duty is to defend our country, but our duty--the
duty of the members sitting on this subcommittee and this full
committee--is to defend you.
The least we should be doing is getting you the resources
that you need. The least we may be able to do is to describe to
the American people what you need, and that, you have helped us
with tremendously here today.
And I want to try to just bring a little more clarification
to that, and Captain McRae, you talked a little bit earlier
today about the importance of a captain being able to take his
ship out and then to do the improvements, I think were your
words that you had--raising the standards.
Would it be fair to call that the ``edge''? As he takes it
from what you would say were the minimum things that you would
check off to go and in that period of time that he is taking
that ship out, that is where he really develops that ``edge''
that he would have if we were in a fight?
Captain McRae. Yes, sir, in my personal opinion I believe
that you would call that the ``edge.' We have--so to be clear,
we train every day in the submarine force and we are very
serious about our training. And we have the perspective that
our submarines have to be capable at all times, whether in a
deployed status, a non-deployed status, in a maintenance
availability--it does not matter.
We are ready to execute, if called upon, given the amount
of resources and the time to get ourselves there. But our
commanding officers are tasked with making sure their ships are
fully ready to provide the readiness required of them no matter
what part of the cycle that they are in.
So we maintain that constant focus on readiness and an
example of that is when I was on the USS Pittsburgh back in
2002, 2003--I am sorry--2001. I apologize. After the attack
of--on 9/11 we were--we had just started maintenance avail
[availability], and without any direction or guidance, we
immediately--another department head and I who I was also
department head at the time--began putting that ship back
together and getting ready to go to sea.
Because we didn't know what was coming, but we wanted to be
ready for it. And I use that as my personal example, that
example applies to all of our submarines and all of our
submarine leadership. So we do pay attention to that every day.
However, as you said, many times certifications and
inspections provide the command a list and a host of corrective
actions--things that they can do better, things that they can
go and work on, things that they can improve on, and that time
alone at sea--to be able to operate and really stress the ship
is really working on how are they going to go after those
identified deficiencies.
How are they going to solve those problems that have been
identified, whether internally, by their own assessment
programs, or externally, by other riders that may have more
experience and have seen better things and be able to point
them in the right direction to steer their training and their
performance.
But when does all that really get put together so that it
is usable and so that it makes an impact on the ship's
performance--it is during those times when they are alone at
sea. And I have seen that several times during my tour at
Squadron 6, where a submarine comes through the deployment
preparation program, they continue to have many things that
they need to go work on, and then if we give them some time at
sea and guess what? They do a great job and they work on those
things, and then when they go overseas and they get ridden by
forward deployed commanders, all we hear are what a great job
they are doing and how fantastic the crews are performing. So
we have seen that time and time again with our deploying
submarines.
Mr. Forbes. Well, I had one of--captains of one of our subs
who described it exactly like you did. He said that period of
time is their--when they develop their ``edge'' and he said,
obviously they can sail the sub out, they can do the things
they need to do, but if they had to get in a high-end fight
with a peer competitor, that is when they desperately need that
``edge.''
And what he worried about was whether or not he was losing
that time to create the edge. So I worry that some of our
readiness may be losing that edge that we may need in a high-
end fight and then the second thing I hear you telling me is
just what Captain Stearns is saying. We worry about our bench
too that you have to reach back to get.
And then the other thing I would ask you about is this. You
look at this every day. You see the needs and what our subs can
do. We now worry because we are only able to meet 39 percent of
our combatant commanders' needs for attack subs around the
globe. What does that mean in terms of the 61 percent we are
not meeting?
And I know you can't talk about all of that, but what you
can talk about here, what is the risk that puts on the table?
Captain McRae. Yes, sir.
So, clearly I am not a geographic combatant commander, but
from my perspective, again, we deploy our submarines to be
plug-and-play. They can operate in any environment, they can
accomplish all submarine force missions and all capabilities
and provide those to the combatant commander when tasked, and
they can do it on very short notice.
And we have seen that happen since my time at the squadron
repeatedly, where submarines will start with one mission and
skill set in mind, and will be shifted--which is one of the
reasons that we do robust training. It covers all possible
missions, not just those we expect them to be tasked with.
So, as you reduce the number of submarines available for
the combatant commanders, as you said, and again, I am kind of
speaking out of turn here because I am speaking for their
perspective, but there are clearly things that are occurring in
the world that we would not have coverage on. It can be a
myriad of things. It can be the continued Chinese you know,
build-up, and the continued deployment of their submarines
further and further with farther and farther reaches to
different parts of the world.
It can be intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance
missions to gain valuable intelligence to provide the Congress
and the Nation, so that we can make decisions about the right
courses of action moving forward. It can be interdiction
operations, it can be monitoring operations. There are lots of
things.
And it could be just having the right number of missiles,
if you will, shooters available for a particular mission area,
a particular time in our Nation's life. And so--so there are a
number of unfunded requirements, if you will, that there is
just no one there to cover.
And at that point, you get down to prioritizing based on
the most critical of what we assume are the most critical,
recognizing that there will be a gap there on what we are able
to maintain coverage on and awareness of--which would then make
our efforts, well a little more inefficient.
Mr. Forbes. Captain Stearns, you, I think, would agree that
the ability of your pilots to fly gives them that ``edge.'' And
when they don't have that flying time, we lose that ``edge.''
You talked about the lack of a bench as well, I think, that you
might have.
One of the things that has concerned me is the Navy has
proposed to limit the Carrier Air Wing One for up to 4 months
without any flying time at all. What would that mean?
Captain Stearns. That means you save maybe a quarter, $9 to
$13 million for an air wing to fund that a quarter. So, by
bringing down an air wing, we know after 3 months the cold--we
call it cold iron. You shut it down, and it means that the
maintenance troops aren't training on those jets, it means the
pilots are losing 3 to 4 months of flight hours that, normally,
we worry if those pilots are going to make the next deployment
that feeds into that.
But also, those pilots, they are going to train are future
pilots that are building those hours. So, now I have got a gap
there as a guy shows up to an instructor role who maybe doesn't
have as many hours.
Mr. Forbes. So you are not only losing your ``edge,'' but
you are kind of losing your ability to backfill, by
additional----
Captain Stearns. Never going to get those hours, never get
it done.
Mr. Forbes. Never get it back.
Captain Stearns. And then, so on the back side of that,
losing an air wing for 4 months not flying, which we did back
in 2009, 2010, it is going to take me three times the amount
and three times the cost to get them back up to speed.
Mr. Forbes. What do your pilots think of that?
Captain Stearns. There are some rumblings of that coming
down, and that will just drive morale straight down into the--
down to the bottom, down there.
Mr. Forbes. Captain Odenthal, we all know, but can you tell
people who are listening to this perhaps at home what the
Seabees do? And I think you did say that you were down to half
that force.
Tell us how this is impacting the deployments for our
sailors that have experienced them, what that tempo has been
like over the last few years for them.
Captain Odenthal. Yes, sir. Thank you for that question.
So, the Seabees, simply to put our mission, we are a
construction unit military. ``We build, we fight,'' is our
logo, and that is what we do. We are able to do high-end
construction in any environment out there, defend it ourselves,
and take care of ourselves.
I would like to think of our mission, really is about these
gentlemen to my right. My job is to build, maintain, repair,
and defend as necessary those forward operating bases in a time
of conflict, that allows, again, these gentlemen to my right,
the Marine Corps, Navy Special Warfare, to operate forward,
stay--keep their presence forward, and be able to replenish,
rearm, and refuel close to the fight and get back into the
fight.
That is the heart of what we do as Seabees.
As far as the OPSTEMPO with the reduction there, we look at
the--certainly with the reduction in the number of units, we
are very quickly into the Reserve when we talk about response
to a conflict. Where I, again, bench depth is something that
reflects well with me there.
We much quicker get to requiring those Reserve units to
operate forward and come to a fight, if we need them, as well.
And there are concerns with the timeline we have for getting
those units prepared, when we mobilize them as well, and our
ability to move more of that training to their pre-mobilization
timeframe to get them forward.
So, certainly on a Reserve side, we worry about the
training hours, the contact time we have with them, both on a
funding level, but also from the fact that we realize when we--
the more time I have with the Reserve that requires training
takes away from that civilian employer piece, and it stresses
out that individual as well.
On the Active side and both the Reserve, our OPSTEMPO,
coming off of a time of war, if you talk to an average E-6, a
first class petty officer in one of my commands, most likely
has done five or six combat or high-stress deployments to a
austere environment, along with others.
So, as we go forward, we certainly--we spoke about embedded
mental health. We work resiliency issues quite hard, have
invested in those things to help our sailors, our Seabees, be
full-up round and be prepared for those next deployments.
Mr. Forbes. Yes, thank you. And the last question I have
for each of you is this.
Last night, I was talking to a former Secretary of the
Navy. And he told me that one of the things that he did when he
would come on a ship or carriers, he would go get the chief,
and he would say, ``You carry me around and show me what is
going on.''
Because he said--two things. He said, ``The chief is going
to hear everything and probably see everything,'' you know, on
that ship.
If I could ask you this, if I went to any of the chiefs, if
I went to someone who you could say, yeah, this guy hears all
the stories from the guys, and he sees what is happening--what
would be the thing they would tell us about readiness concerns
that they would be saying, I want to tell this committee this.
Or what is the story they would tell us about the impact this
readiness is having on one of the men or women serving under
them?
Captain Robertson. Thank you for the question. I have a
high degree of confidence that any of the chiefs in my mess
would--would say that their biggest concern right now is our
ability to be able to get out of my current maintenance phase
on time.
The--the cascading impact of--and just for reference,
Normandy is just at the end of our second month of a 7-month
maintenance period right now. Their concern, as is mine, is
that if we are extended in any way, due to possible lack of
resources, or unable to get any new or growth work completed on
time has a cascading impact that winds up compressing--which I
am sure everyone is aware of and has heard of the compression
of training cycles and what that cascading impact is.
A late delivery from my maintenance period winds up with
taking away--and all those training requirements I still need
to do to get to my intermediate and advanced level training
still need to occur, but they get compressed.
And so, Congressman Thornberry had mentioned it--it is just
like cramming for a test. And the chiefs were very much an
integral part of this; if we take away their ability to
influence and help train, and make sure maintenance is getting
done on these ships, because we have compressed it all because
of a late delivery of a ship from its maintenance period, that
is a significant problem to our readiness.
Mr. Forbes. Captain McRae.
Captain McRae. Yes, sir, Chairman. So, from a submarine
perspective, I would tell you the chiefs in the Submarine
Squadron 6 on our units have all suffered the impact of these
depot maintenance delays that we talked about.
And they can all tell you the story of the Albany, they can
tell you the impacts that are occurring on Boise, because they
see and they feel that.
The next thing I think they see and feel quite a bit are
spare parts availability. And we didn't talk about that a lot
in terms of submarines, but that is something that we certainly
wrestle with as well. Cannibalizations are relatively frequent
in the submarine force. In the submarine force total, we do
about 1.5 cannibalizations every single day to keep our
submarines at sea.
Mr. Forbes. Explain what that means.
Captain McRae. So, basically, that is where we have a
critical need, a part fails on a unit that is operational,
either at sea already, or needs to get underway to accomplish a
mission.
And we look in the supply system, and the supply system
either says there are no parts available at all, or if there is
one, it is not going to be able to be here for a few months or
so, well outside the timeline required.
And so, in that case, then the only resort we are left to
is to look for a boat that has a similar piece of equipment
that is not as high on the priority scale for operations, and
we pull that piece from that boat and install it on the boat
that is about to conduct operations.
That results in a subsequent back-fit on the previous boat
that had been--that had lost that capability, and it also
decrements that boat's ability to go out and operate in that
surge capacity that we talked about, and that surge tank, in
responding to emergent threats as they come up or to tasking as
it comes up, as the world situation changes.
And so, it does, you know, hurt our longer-term readiness
from that perspective.
The other thing I would tell you is--is bench depth. I
think they feel the impacts of the bench depth, and I think
every submariner would tell you that certainly, when we lose
someone, we are challenged. But quite frankly, many times, the
manning and distribution system is even challenged to get the
appropriate sailor, a chief petty officer for example, to
relieve on board at the planned rotation date--which has been
on the books for a couple of years, maybe 3 years.
But they can't--they don't have an available chief to go
and relieve the chief that is onboard, and everybody
understands if you don't have a relief, you don't leave.
So now, when I have been expecting to transfer in, let's
say, March of 2016, my transfer is held up indefinitely until
they can find a suitable replacement, get him onboard, and we
can conduct turnover.
That is good for the command, but it is terrible for the
family. And I think they would tell you, they could give you
several examples of that occurring on their ships and with
people that they know.
Mr. Forbes. Stearns.
Captain Stearns. My VFA [strike fighter squadron] chiefs,
Hornet chiefs, are going to have to tell you, where are my
parts? They are going to walk right in there--when am I getting
my--is my aircraft going to come out of the depot on time?
Because they are not coming out on time, just due to the
capacity. Not that the product coming out is poor, but it is
just that they are overloaded with capacity.
They are going to ask about, when am I getting more chiefs,
supervisory chiefs to help build these jets that I am now
burdened with out here as well. And then also, when are you
going to--comment of when are you going to quit taking jets
from me, not only to feed the deployed forces, but we also feed
our test and eval [evaluation] units, and our high-end fighting
out in Air Wing Fallon.
So, we are--we are donating jets out to them as well to
train for that high-end fight. Right now, those guys don't have
jets, because everything gets pulled from them forward. So I
have fleet jets right now supporting test and evaluation for
future software changes upgrades, just to keep feeding that
high-end fight. So they are going to ask for parts, people,
when am I getting my jets out, and then quit taking my jets.
Mr. Forbes. Captain Odenthal.
Captain Odenthal. Yes, sir. So Seabee chiefs are normally
shy. That would be a joke. But the--they would most likely,
with my chiefs, our technical skills and proficiency is a
concern as we come out of the war era. We have done a lot of
contingency-type construction and we need to--we are working on
a proficiency to make sure we have those high-end skills to do
any construction.
And so our constant need for more time to train to those
missions and prepare for that construction mission certainly is
one of their highest concerns as well as the maintenance and
upkeep of our equipment.
With the reduction in the size of the force, we actually
are fairly well-equipped today with the equipment we have--
reduced sizes. But we continue to use that in austere
environments, keeping up with the maintenance of that equipment
and thinking of the future 3 to 5 years down the road what the
replacement is, is a concern we have across the force and being
able to maintain the equipment ready to go to war.
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Wittman, any more questions?
Mr. Wittman. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Captain
Odenthal, I wanted to drill down a little bit. You had made
some mention earlier and with the numbers within the Naval
Construction Group 2 force, but overall, you spoke about 60
percent of your force now is in the Reserve element.
But within that 60 percent, 30 percent of those are the
skilled tradesmen and now being part of the Reserve unit, they
take the skills that they learn in C School and now they
practice those for a couple of weeks out of the year.
And on a normal demand basis, that is probably okay. But
let's say we get into a situation, let's say in PACOM [Pacific
Command], where we have to surge and we have to do a lot there
in spinning up or to support whatever may be going on in that
theater.
The question then becomes is--where does the surge capacity
come in and where does the ability for us to be able to
function with that large a level of Reserve Component keep us
where we need to be as far as capability and not--not
necessarily from the immediate readiness element, but the
ability to surge in the event of a conflict in areas like that.
I would like to get your perspective on that.
Captain Odenthal. Thank you for the question. So as you
mentioned, our Reserve force now with Seabees, historically we
think of most of our Reserve Seabees coming from the
construction industry.
Today we find ourselves in today's environment that about
30 percent of our Reserve force are actually in the
construction industry. The others are in other career fields.
Which means, from my side is, I have--rather than counting,
assuming that experience level that comes from the civilian
trades, I have to teach those skills to my Seabees that come
in.
We have developed what we call the Readiness Training
Platform, where we have relocated those units to Gulfport,
Mississippi, Port Hueneme, California, which is our two hubs
for Seabees across the fleet. From--rather than having them go
to their drill sites, local drill sites, for every drill
period, they come to our sites where we have the equipment, the
tools, the instructors to teach those skills and to work with
them.
That has been successful, but it is somewhat limited again
because of the time and the contact time we have as well.
What happens--and we talk about mobilization of those
forces--anything that I can't do in that regular pre-
mobilization training period falls into the post-mobilization
period
So we add those classes, we factor in that timeline to
prepare them to go, whether it's that conflict or others, to
make sure that we have that. We will not field those Seabees,
one, if they are not prepared for combat, and two, if they are
not proficient in their mission to be able to perform that. We
won't put them forward. But it does add--adds time to our post-
mobilization training for those Reserves and able to get them
out to the fleet as an effective member of the force.
Mr. Wittman. Let me ask a couple questions about the
budget. In light of sequestration, the budget cuts there, I
know the Navy has transitioned to having contract work for
naval facilities. So the question then becomes, again, what
happens in a surge scenario, what happens with being able to
generate consistent readiness.
On top of that, too, now with OCO being a larger element of
the budget and, again, trying to generate readiness within the
OCO element, give me your perspective both previously and where
we are with sequester and that has kind of--fanned out a little
bit now, but it is coming back again.
But also in how you generate readiness in that realm of
contracting out a fair amount of work and then how does OCO, in
those dollars, affect you in your needs going forward with what
you have to generate within that current budget realm?
Captain Odenthal. Right. Thank you. So across any COCOM,
currently 22 percent of this year's budget is funded by OCO. We
are heavily leveraged in OCO. Last year it was 47 percent. So
moving in the right direction overall funding.
With the forces I have deployed today, those 200 reservists
I have, are all funded by OCO and that is how we get them
forward and use them to meet those demands from the COCOMs.
The, as far as construction, we, and work that is contracted,
the forward piece, we take on those missions, we have got our
units fully employed forward as well. In homeport our normal,
our first choice, for training for construction is to pick up
projects from the Navy, smaller projects that our units can
employ, whether it is on the base in Gulfport, across the
Southeast/East region, or even up to Norfolk where I put troops
to build extensions to the galley, and those sort of things.
So we try to leverage other people's money, other pieces of
the budget to--one, to, one, to support the maintenance backlog
across the Navy, but then also to get that training as best we
can for our Seabees.
Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Courtney now promised all of you at the
beginning that at the end we would give you time if there is
anything you need to clarify or anything you felt we needed to
put on the record about our readiness now, this is the time to
do that.
And--Captain Odenthal, why don't we start with you and work
backwards because we have been doing it the opposite way and we
just want to thank you all for being here and look forward to
any wrap-up remarks you may have.
Captain Odenthal. Thank you, sir. It is an honor to be here
and I have nothing further for the record.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you. Captain Stearns.
Captain Stearns. Thanks for the opportunity to be here and
talk about our readiness. The only thing I would have to
finalize and add is after being a commanding officer and then
the job I had after that was Aviation Training Readiness and
now as the commodore job, we have gone kind of full spectrum
of--cost-wise readiness, we were down to the bone of exactly
what we needed.
And then what I have noticed after sequestration in the CR,
after being in the man, train, and equip business basically for
the past 5 years, is that we are kind of now just looking to
get to the finish line with--especially with our A through D F-
18s. They were never going to fly here, so it is not about--it
is not about cost-wise readiness, it is about getting to the
finish line and the gap in the capability here as well.
So it is just getting more expensive to maintain older
airframes out there and then I would just say the platforms we
have are extraordinary and what we have coming is extraordinary
but we have, we are tasked now with maintaining that and
extending that life in a--there is a cost to that that is just
beyond cost-wise readiness.
But I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the forum.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Captain.
Captain Robertson.
Captain Robertson. I also appreciate the opportunity. I
shared a very short story with you with an exercise I executed
right before I deployed last year in early 2015. I would like
to put it on record here, the value it was to me as a
commanding officer.
In this particular exercise, all of the cruiser-destroyer
units assigned to the Theodore Roosevelt Strike Group
participated in an integrative, live-fire exercise. Within this
exercise, we had eight high-speed target vessels that were
attempting to penetrate the battle space around our strike
group.
We were able to employ layer defense using F-18s dropping
live ordnance. And then, helicopters employing live ordnance.
And then, finally getting into the--within the vital area and
all the ships being able to employ their self-defense measures.
Five-inch CIWS [close-in weapon system] and then also, small
arms; was some of the best training that I had experienced.
And very realistic. And one of the things it gave me as a
soon-to-deploy commander, absolute confidence that I was ready.
That my team was ready. That my weapons systems were ready for
that type of fight. We truly need to start to get to that level
here when we are talking about anti-ship cruise missiles.
We need to make sure that we have the infrastructure that
can flex strike groups to give them. And we need to have the
targets, we need to have the ordnance. We need to have the
facilities to be able to train to this and exercise this. So we
can truly make sure that we have the confidence in our weapon
systems to go out and perform at that high end that we need to.
So I just want to share as far as our readiness piece, we have
got to make sure that we are ready for that high-end, anti-ship
cruise missile capability.
On the lethality, I know that my leadership team certainly
has been working here within this body here to make sure that
we are getting the right lethality out to the ships as fast as
we can. The only other comment to that is ensuring that we have
the sufficient volume of that lethality capability. No one is
ever going to shoot just one at United States, at a strike
group, okay. And if we are going to be ready for a high-end
threat, we need to make sure we have sufficient bat to go out
there with.
And then the last thing that I would like to just address
real quickly is, is just the predictability and stability of
resources. To really optimize this, the Fleet Response Plan, we
need the predictability and stability of consistent resources
that we can plan to and really get the gains that are designed
within the Optimized Fleet Response Plan. Thank you for the
opportunity.
Mr. Forbes. Captain McRae.
Captain McRae. Sir, thank you, sir. As my colleagues
stated, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and
discuss our challenges that we face every day from our
readiness perspective with you all. We appreciate your interest
and your concerns.
From my perspective, the insufficient funding levels that
we receive to meet all of our requirements, coupled with the
budgetary uncertainty and instability that we have seen over
the last several years, are having detrimental effects on our
readiness.
And we have discussed a lot of the specifics today. There
are many more out there that we haven't had an opportunity to
discuss today. It is a very complex problem with a very complex
impact that permeates our forces. So, as I think Mr. Wittman
captured earlier, it is a complex situation. And those
secondary and tertiary effects and impacts are much more
significant, I think, than many people realize.
So, the opportunity to shed light on those, I think, is
important. And moving forward, we would just appreciate the
continued support of not only the committee, but also the
Congress in meeting our needs so that we can meet your
requirements. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Forbes. We want to thank you for, again, your service
to our country. Thank you for what you are getting ready to do
and thank you for taking time to come up here and enlighten us.
Admiral Davidson, thank you for being here and for your
service.
And if no one has any additional questions--Kelly, Zach,
thank you for coming up and for being supportive of your
families.
And with that we are done.
[Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m., the subcommittees were
adjourned.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
May 26, 2016
=======================================================================
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
May 26, 2016
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
=======================================================================
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
May 26, 2016
=======================================================================
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. PETERS
Captain Odenthal. Navy's Military Construction budget request for
2017, which is at its lowest level since 1999, is prioritized to
support Combatant Commander requirements, enable new platforms/
missions, upgrade utility infrastructure, and recapitalize Naval
Shipyards. While we are able to fund projects vital to the initial
operating capability of the Littoral Combat Ship and other new
platforms and systems, fiscal constraints compel us to defer much-
needed repairs and upgrades for the vast majority of our
infrastructure, including waterfront structures, airfields,
laboratories, administrative buildings, academic institutions,
warehouses, ordnance storage and utilities systems. Long term
underinvestment in these facilities will take an eventual toll on our
ability to support deploying forces. [See page 21.]
[all]