As reported by Navy Times website (1), the carriers Vinson and Truman will wrap up 10 month deployments next year. This contrasts with the Navy's optimistic Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP) which is intended to limit deployments to 7 months. Of course, the first attempt at implementing the OFRP already failed when the scheduled carrier couldn't make it due to maintenance issues.
In any event, there are two relevant observations about the OFRP.
1. The OFRP, even if it works as intended, still results in 7 month deployments which are a month longer than the historical and preferred standard of 6 months.
2. Given the Navy's litany of failures when it comes to planning (anything), the odds that the OFRP program will work are poor.
We'll keep an eye on this.
(1) Navy Times, "2015 outlook: Fleet faces op tempo, repair challenges", Lance M. Bacon, 24-Dec-2014 ,
I don't see any improvement possible for the carriers. We are already hearing worries from Asian allies about the looming lack of a carrier, and now we are on the edge of war again in Iraq/Syria. All China has to do is land troops on some crop of coral in the South China sea and We will have to divert one and there, and the Persian Gulf and the Med will soon be supporting more and more strikes on ISIS.
ReplyDeleteAs one of Craig Hooper's post over at http://nextnavy.com/ shows, we are really presently at only 7-8 carriers that are actually available due to a CVN being one high maintenance lady. How set in stone that maintenance schedule will remain is anyone's guess.
But I just don't see how the growing demands on the fleet are going to allow any reduction in deployments.
Well, the LCS deployments might be shorter but that will be because they will be either broken again or due more to their lack of any real naval mission other than shooing away pirates .
This is classic political strategy by Admirals. Abuse ships and crews then blame Congress for not handing over more cash. The Navy could order all ships to stay in port for six months and nothing would happen abroad.
ReplyDeleteSeriously ?
DeleteNATO defence budgets get cut and we get ISIS uprising across the middle east, China machine gunning indonesians in the south china sea and Russian annexation of Crimea and East Ukraine.
You really think if the USA pulled back and sat at home for half a year, everything would be ok ?!?!
The USN doesn’t collect ships for fun you know, these people put their live on the line in these assets, on a daily basis.
We ( the UK ) are rushing QEC carrier to IOC now I think. And the rumours are we will definatly be picking up shared US\UK carrier duties. Providing 1 extra super-carrier continuously at sea 365 days a year. Its still a few years away though.
Beno