Requesting “eight ships a year is not going to get to 355,” the Navy’s top budget official, Rear Adm. John Gumbleton, said. “All things being equal, if you have a 300-ship Navy and a 30-year lifespan you have to recapitalize it…so eight is not going to do it.”
By Paul McLearyThe House Appropriations defense subcommittee pressed the leaders of the Navy and Marine Corps today about how they could meet the national security challenges with shrinking budgets, questioning the survivability of the Littoral Combat Ships, the status of the costly and controversial Joint Strike Fighter and the Navy’s plan to take seven cruisers and possibly…
By Otto KreisherPENTAGON: House Republicans will probably be seething after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta scolded them today for adding several billion dollars money to the defense budget. “If we’re prevented from retiring aging ships and aircraft that no longer fit strategic requirements, then Congress would be forcing us to look elsewhere for savings,” Panetta said at a…
By Colin Clark