Navy Pundits: More Ships Than Planned Likely Needed For Missile Defense

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By Emelie Rutherford - Defense News, January 10, 2010

Military analysts told lawmakers yesterday the Navy may need to buy dozens of additional ships beyond those currently planned to satisfy President Barack Obama's vision for sea-based missile defense in Europe.

The phased missile-defense setup announced last September abandons former President George W. Bush's plans for ground-based interceptors and radar in Eastern Europe. In the early stages it relies on ships stationed in European and Middle Eastern waters, outfitted with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system and Raytheon's [RTN] Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, to protect U.S. allies and deployed troops from Iranian missiles.

House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) has said the Navy may need to buy more BMD-outfitted DDG-51 destroyers. Eric Labs, a senior analyst at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and Loren Thompson, CEO at the Lexington Institute, both testified before the Seapower panel yesterday afternoon that "dozens" of additional BMD-capable ships may be needed.

Labs noted that the Navy's currently stated requirement for 88 cruisers and destroyers--a requirement that the service may soon change--would not yield enough ships for the new sea-based missile defense mission.

"So to the extent that the BMD mission is now being layered on top of that (ship) requirement, obviously additional ships in some number would be required," Labs said.

The number of additional ships would depend on factors such as how many ships stations the United States establishes and whether the ships will be on constant patrol, he said.

If the vessels provide 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a week coverage, Labs said, the requirement for additional ships could be in the dozens. Yet if the Pentagon opts to surge ships to areas with developing crises the number of needed ships would be less, he said. Changing the ships' rotation and crewing could impact the tally of needed ships as well, he added.

Thompson said the requirement for any need BMD-equipped ships, because of the Obama administration's new missile-defense plan, is driven mainly by two things: the level of desired missile protection and the types of technology that can reasonably be expected in areas such as radar weight and power aperture.

Thompson said because the missile-defense setup is intended to protect the continental United States from ICBMs in later phases, "we're probably talking about dozens of Aegis-class vessels...above and
beyond the existing requirement."

Even though the Navy is upgrading existing DDG-51 destroyers for the BMD mission, Thompson noted those ships are needed for other missions.

He added he sees no evidence the Navy is making plans to buy additional ships' hulls for the new missile-defense plan. "They're certainly investing in the sensor and the computer technology, they're developing the munitions," he said. "But they are not funding the number of hulls that would required to shift most of this mission for continental missile defense."

Thompson also said he doesn't think the Navy will need a CG(X) cruiser, a notional missile-defense ship the service reportedly is no longer planning to build.

Ronald O'Rourke, a specialist in naval affairs at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), also testified before the Seapower subcommittee. He noted press reports that the Navy is increasing its cruiser-destroyer requirement from 88 to 96 ships. Yet O'Rourke said the service is not planning to provide all the needed funding for such an increase.

Taylor questioned whether a Navy destroyer conducting its routine operation of escorting an aircraft carrier could also aid with missile defense at the same time.

O'Rourke said it would "problematic" because the carrier would not necessarily be in the optimal location for fulfilling the BMD mission.

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