The Navy is planning to slow down its buying profile for the Navy’s next-generation frigate, according to a report from Defense News.
The Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan submitted to Congress earlier this year along with their fiscal 2020 budget proposal showed plans to buy one FFG(X) in 2020, and then two per year until 2020, but a Dec. 16 memo from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget that was obtained by Defense News indicates a new plan to buy just one FFG(X) in 2021 and 2022 before increasing the buy to two per year in 2023 and 2024 and then three in 2024.
Additionally, a Virginia-class submarine would be cut from the budget, with the Navy requesting just one in 2021 before going back to two submarines per year, as the service had been doing for years to address a projected attack submarine shortfall.
Congress recently passed the fiscal 2020 appropriations bill for the Department of Defense that includes $24 billion for the construction of 14 ships.
USNI News reports that the bill includes $2.2 billion for the third and fourth Ford-class aircraft carriers, $5.3 billion for Virginia-class submarines (as well as $3 billion for advance funding for future subs), $1.3 billion for the future frigate, and $1.8 billion in advance funding for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine.
The bill also allocates $20 billion for Navy aircraft ranging from F-35s to V-22 Ospreys to P-8A Poseidons, and funding for 340,500 active duty personnel (an increase of 5,100 over FY19).
