Down to the sea in ships

Sea Power, Apr 2003 by Bernard, Rick

Congress's Navy-Marine Corps Cancus Focuses on People and Platforms

An Interview with Rep. Edward L. Schrock

Chairman of the Navy-Marine Corps Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives

As founder and co-chairman of the Navy-Marine Corps Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Edward L. Schrock (R-Va.) plays the role of resident diplomat for the sea services. One of his favorite tasks is to take members of Congress out to the fleet, confident that those who see the military at work will be more inclined to support it. A retired Navy captain and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Schrock is an avid supporter of unmanned aircraft and a champion of the Navy's planned Littoral Combat Ship.

He says that the Sea Swap program-i.e., flying replacement crews to ships that are forward-deployedwill bring fundamental changes to the Navy, but that increasing the fleet to the 375 ships that Navy leaders say are needed is going to be "a hard sell" because of intense competition in Congress for budget dollars.

Schrock, 62, represents Virginia's second district, home to hundreds of employees of nearby Newport News Shipbuilding, one of the Navy's major contractors. A second-term House member, he previously served in the Virginia Senate where he supported policies favorable to business and education.

When he arrived at the House in 2001, Schrock discovered that "the Army, Coast Guard, and Air Force had caucuses, but the sea services did not ... so I asked myself, 'why not?.' Today, the Navy-Marine Corps Caucus comprises 90 members: 46 Republicans and 44 Democrats.

Schrock made these remarks in an interview with Sea Power Editor in Chief Rick Barnard.

Sea Power: Under provisions of the 2004 shipbuilding bud. get, the fleet would contract from 301 ships to 291. Then ii would rise to 305 ships by 2009-when, supposedly, the Navy will be building 14 ships per year. The budget funds about seven ships annually until 2009. Is there a risk that the Navy will get the drop in fleet size but not the increas( that is supposed to come later?

Schrock: There is an element of risk. I talked with Admiral Clark [Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations] about that. He wants to decommission the Spruance-class [destroyers] because they don't have the technology, or the ability to contain the technology, that we need today. Also, three of the original Oliver Hazard Perry [guided-missile] frigates would go.

Instead of putting money into platforms that eat money, the savings can go into more development of the new platforms that we need down the pike. So I think Admiral Clark's philosophy is right. But we need to make sure the Navy has a vigorous shipbuilding program. I think 14 ships per year are necessary to bring the fleet up to the minimum that we need, which is 375.

In an ideal world, I would want that to happen today. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world nor will we ever. If we are going to truly get to the 375-ship Navy that the current chief of naval operations aspires to, we have to do better than [build] five, six, or seven ships every year. We have to produce 12 to 14 ships every year.

Is there political support in Congress to attain that goal? Schrock: Well, I can speak pretty much for the folks in the House Armed Services Committee because I hear the debate that goes on. I think they agree. But it's going to be a hard sell because there are so many projects competing for budget dollars. So we'll just have to keep pounding. The war on terror should make us realize that we've got to have a more modem military so that we can fight an enemy as yet unknown.

And we need to shorten the time frame in which these things are built. Something on the drawing board today might not hit the water for 10 to 15 years. That makes no sense. That's one reason why the Littoral Combat Ship [LCS] is such an important platform. The Navy has tightened the construction phase on it.

Nonetheless, I don't like the fact that the first ship is not coming until 2007. I'd like to see them in 2005. That's going to be a transformational ship, because it's going to be "plug and play." You can put in new technology and not have to practically rebuild the ship every time [upgrades are needed]. You just unplug one thing and plug another in.

What about a transformation in capability? Does the LCS provide that as well?

Schrock: It will be unlike anything we've had. You can use COTS (commercial off-the-shelf systems), and you can really plug them in. That's going to save the taxpayers a lot of money. It is a platform that you are going to be able to keep long beyond any life expectancy of the current fleet. The LCS's primary mission is for close-in, high-speed, maneuverable-type operations along coastlines.

Do you believe the Navy and Coast Guard should share ships' hulls, beginning with the LCS design? Is this something Congress should mandate?

Schrock: Why not? We're going to share designs with the Joint Strike Fighter. It makes the economics of the thing more palatable to members of Congress. When I first entered the Navy, we had our own platforms, the Army had theirs, and nobody talked with one another. The blips on a Navy screen that represented a ship were totally different from what the Air Force was looking at. Nobody worked together. Now, interoperability seems to make a lot of sense. If the Coast Guard and