Welcome to the CavasShips Podcast with Christopher P. Cavas and Chris Servello…a weekly podcast looking at naval and maritime events and issues of the day – in the US, across the seas and around the world. This week… the Navy ordered two new aircraft carriers at once from Newport News Shipbuilding, and the shipyard is going to build the third and fourth ships of the Gerald R Ford class a bit differently. We’ll hear from the shipyard’s vice president in charge of construction of the future Enterprise and Doris Miller, Mr. Brian Fields about what will be different about the next carriers from the Virginia shipbuilders.
Please send us feedback by DM’ing @CavasShips or @CSSProvision or you can email chriscavas@gmail.com or cservello@defaeroreport.com.
This Week’s Naval Round Up:
Naval ships from a number of countries have entered or are operating in the Red Sea to support the evacuation of foreign nationals from Sudan. The US destroyer TRUXTUN and expeditionary sea base ship LEWIS B PULLER are off Port Sudan. Among other nations, Canada’s support ship ASTERIX and the British frigate LANCASTER also are taking part, as are many military aircraft. The three ships of China’s 43rd Escort Force also have been involved, and the naval supply ship WEISHANHU, took more than 200 Pakistani nationals from Sudan to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Fighting broke out in the country’s capital of Khartoum due to a power struggle between two heavily-armed factions.
The level of Russian naval activity, as measured from open sources, has dropped to levels not seen in over two years, reported a Belgian naval analyst. The departure on April 22 of three Russian warships with an oiler, supposedly headed for the Baltic Sea, contributed to the drop in overall numbers.
Iran on April 27 seized a civilian merchant oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman. The ADVANTAGE SWEET, of 159,000 deadweight tons and registered in the Marshall Islands, was en route from Kuwait bound for Houston, Texas when it was boarded by the Republic of Iran Navy from the corvette BAYANDOR and taken to Iranian waters. Iran claimed the ADVANTAGE SWEET collided with an Iranian fishing craft in the Persian Gulf during the evening of April 26 and fled the scene; Iranian state media said two members of the fishing vessel were missing and others injured.
The Chinese Navy commissioned the destroyer XIANYANG in March – the eighth Type 055 Nanjing-class destroyer to enter service since 2020. Displacing well over 12,000 tons, the ships are China’s most modern and capable surface warship. Two shipyards are producing the Type 055s, along with slightly smaller Type 052D destroyers.
A US Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft carried out a transit of the Taiwan Strait on April 27, marking the second time this year the US has sent a Navy aircraft through the waterway between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. There have also been two US Navy surface ship transits so far this year.
The US aircraft carrier GEORGE H W BUSH returned to her homeport of Norfolk April 23 after an eight-month deployment to the Mediterranean Sea with Carrier Air Wing Seven. The BUSH will be relieved in the Med by USS GERALD R FORD making her first fully-fledged operational deployment.
Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels were involved in several standoffs and skirmishes in the South China Sea during the past week. Philippine forces were reportedly monitoring a large fleet of 116 Chinese fishing vessels near Julian Felipe Reef, also known as Whitsun Reef, and another 18 near Sabina Shoal, regions well inside the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. As depicted in several videos displayed on social media there have been several confrontations and near-collisions between Chinese and Filipino ships.
And on April 26 US and Philippine forces took part in the live-fire sinking exercise of a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in the South China Sea during Exercise Balikatan. The victim was the corvette PANGASINAN, which was decommissioned in 2021. The ship was originally USS PCE-891, built as a patrol escort ship in 1944 in Willamette, Oregon. Known only by her hull number, she was transferred to the Philippines in 1948 as part of the original Philippine Navy, and was an active ship until shortly before being decommissioned.
CAVAS Squawk:
The initial round of Navy posture hearings wrapped up hours before we recorded this podcast. Each year the leaders of the Navy Department – the Navy Secretary, the chief of naval operations, and commandant of the Marine Corps – appear – like the rest of the Pentagon leadership and those of each service — before the four top Congressional committees with direct oversight of the Defense Department’s budget – the appropriations and armed services committees of the House and Senate.
This year – again – I watched all four. Listening to what the nation’s senators and representatives want to question the Navy leadership about is an excellent way to see where this year’s controversies lie. The truth is, despite whatever you might hear each year about the Pentagon’s budget submission, the overwhelming majority of the request is approved without discussion. The hearings are where you get a sense of what issues or items might change.
Discussion about the threat from China and the Navy’s warfighting readiness were legion – maybe something like half of all congresscritters used some allotment of their question time to display their concern. Other issues frequently cited were weapon stockpiles. The most frequent personnel concern was suicides among service people. And there are always a high number of questions reflecting parochial and constituent concerns of particular interest.
But the theme that stood out through all four hearings – House and Senate, appropriators and authorizers, Democrats and Republicans – was the sense that the Navy and the Pentagon do not ask for enough ships. It’s clear – heck, it’s been clear for some years now – that if the Navy asked for more ships a bipartisan, bicameral Congress would pay for them. Why the Pentagon – and successive presidential administrations from presidents Obama, Trump and Biden – don’t do this is a major mystery, particularly given China’s huge efforts to build itself a vast, modern navy that can threaten not just the entire western Pacific, but also extend Chinese influence worldwide.
Within shipbuilding, Congress once again expressed its widespread disbelief that the Navy’s disposal of numerous ships – many nowhere near the end of their expected service lives – is a bad policy. Hardly anyone in the big high-backed chairs seems to believe that divest to invest is a policy that will pay useful dividends any time soon. And over and over, pointed direct questions from all sides drilled into the unexplained and so far inexplicable Pentagon decision to halt further procurement of LPD landing ship dock amphibious ships. No one is buying the explanation that the so-called strategic pause is going to yield budget bonuses – far from it. It seems certain that Congress will reinstitute LPD procurement – which will be more costly no matter what because the Navy already has disrupted the industrial supply chain, which will cost more to restart than if they’d simply tried to change the procurement strategy while still building the ships – which everyone also agrees are important and needed.
There will be further hearings, of course, drilling down into more specific issues. The very real threat of a full-year continuing resolution for the fiscal 2024 budget would be a disaster should Congress just throw up its hands and find itself unable to do its job of funding the defense of the nation.
But should they do their job and pass a 2024 defense budget, it seems a foregone conclusion that all versions of the bill will direct the Navy to buy more LPDs. Which makes it a wonder why this is happening in the first place.
