THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 13, 1997 TAG: 9702130303
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 109 lines
The Navy is betting that technologies now being developed ultimately will replace thousands of sailors, letting the service use money it would have spent on salaries and benefits buy more ships and planes, the nation's top admiral acknowledged Wednesday.
``We are looking at coming down the glideslope some more,'' Adm. Jay L. Johnson, the chief of naval operations, said. ``That's always been part of the plan.''
Johnson promised that additional cuts are ``not something that will be taken out on the backs of our sailors,'' either through forced retirements or longer deployments for those who remain.
``Through the whole drawdown . . . we've been very careful in everything we do to protect our career force,'' he asserted. ``None of that changes.''
But as it enters the 21st century, the Navy will focus on maintaining roughly its current level of ships and its activities around the world with significantly fewer people, Johnson said. That means future generations of Americans will have a harder time getting into the Navy and will have to be smarter, better sailors to stay in.
Budget plans the Pentagon released last week call for a
cut of 11,000 sailors in 1998 and another 6,000 in 1999. The Navy estimates that it saves about $30,000 each year for each position eliminated, so making the cuts will generate about $510 million annually for other Navy needs.
Still, there will need to be more cuts in subsequent years, Johnson said, if the Navy is to increase the pace of ship purchases beyond the four- to six-per-year projected from now through 2003.
At that shipbuilding rate, vessels beginning service today will have to last up to 60 years if the fleet is to be maintained at the 330-346 ship level Navy leaders desire. That's not realistic, Johnson said.
``But for now, I'm OK with that,'' he added, because he is convinced that technologies and more economical shipbuilding methods under development will save enough money to allow the pace of construction to be increased in the next decade.
Johnson cited several experimental programs, including the ``Smart Ship'' USS Yorktown, an AEGIS cruiser outfitted with automated systems designed to reduce manning requirements, and the ``arsenal ship,'' a missile barge that will be the most lethal warship ever as harbingers for the fleet.
The arsenal ship, the first of which is scheduled for construction in 1999, will have 500 or more missile tubes and storage space for several reloadings. It will rely on other ships to guide those missiles and is being designed for a crew of 50 or fewer, less than one-seventh the manpower today's destroyers require.
Johnson said the lessons the Navy expects to learn from the smart ship and the arsenal ship will be applied to produce lower manning requirements on new generations of surface ships and aircraft carriers now being designed.
Those lower requirements will begin to show up on CVN-77, the last carrier in the Nimitz class, and should be dramatically in evidence on CVX, a new generation carrier that the Navy expects to begin building around 2010, he added.
Because today's carriers sail with crews of more than 5,000, even a cut of 20 percent in manning requirements would save the Navy $30 million per year.
CVN-77, scheduled to have its keel laid at Newport News Shipbuilding in 2002, will be a transition ship to CVX, Johnson said. The Navy is seeking about $18 million for design work on the ship in 1998 and will request about $1 billion to buy its nuclear reactor in 2000.
Before construction is complete around 2008, the pricetag will reach $5 billion, a figure sure to attract attention in Congress as it pushes to balance the federal budget.
Johnson promised that the Navy will resist pressure to scrap CVN-77 and proceed directly to CVX however, calling the last Nimitz carrier critical to the Navy's ability to meet its obligations around the world. And ``if we go straight to CVX . . . we're not going to be as smart as we need to be to make that truly the platform for the future.''
He also offered a spirited defense for two other expensive and controversial weapons procurement programs, the new attack submarine and the F/A-18 ``Super Hornet'' jet.
Johnson said a team approach on the new submarine, with Newport News Shipbuilding and a rival yard, Electric Boat of Groton, Conn., constructing different sections of each ship, should produce cost savings that will help the Navy afford a variety of other vessels.
That approach is the linchpin of the Navy's entire shipbuilding budget for 1998, he added. While the two shipyards insist there is no firm deal between them, Johnson said he's confident they and the Navy will be able to work out the details.
``It's new and it's different and it's probably very complex,'' he said.
An aviator himself, Johnson said he got a close look at the Super Hornet during a visit Tuesday to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland, where the first of the new jets are being tested.
``The airplane itself is magnificent,'' he said, and ``is the right answer for the U.S. Navy.'' He discounted claims by critics that the plane will be only marginally better than the smaller F/A-18 models it will replace.
Johnson's hourlong interview Wednesday with reporters from Norfolk and San Diego, the Navy's two biggest ports, was among the first he has granted to civilian journalists since he took over the service's top job last August. President Clinton selected Johnson following the suicide of Adm. Jeremy ``Mike'' Boorda.
Johnson said he deliberately kept a low profile during his first six months in office, concentrating on getting around the fleet and introducing himself to sailors.
After the shock of Boorda's death, ``I wanted them to understand where the new CNO was coming from,'' he said. ``And (because) Adm. Boorda was the sailor's sailor, and his commitment to the people was so strong and so sincere and so well known, I wanted to make sure that they knew that we weren't casting them aside just because we had a new CNO.''
Johnson said he has stressed to sailors that ``every decision I make here has the impact on you, our people, embedded right in the middle of it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
Adm. Jay L. Johnson says cuts in manpower will allow the Navy to buy
more vessels.
KEYWORDS: U.S. NAVY FORCE REDUCTION DOWNSIZING <