Page 86: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 1985)

DDG-51 CLASS (continued and instantaneous worldwide com- munications via satellite. By the late 1970s literally hundreds had been stricken from the register—scrap- ped, shifted to the National Defense

Reserve Fleet (NDRF), sold or otherwise transferred to Third

World allies, or assigned to the Na- val Reserve. (It is worth noting that not one was sunk by enemy action.) (4) In normal times—however "normal" is defined in this second half of the most abnormal century in all of recorded history—the ships dropped from the register would have been replaced, probably on a one-for-one basis. (Theoretically, fewer ships would be required, be- cause the replacement ships would be, and are, much more capable than the ships being replaced; that factor is more than offset, though, by the increase in U.S. commit- ments worldwide and the burgeon- ing post-WW II growth of the Soviet

Navy.) Moreover, the 1960s and 1970s were particularly bad times for the U.S. Navy. Shipbuilding was cut back repeatedly to pay for the more immediate needs of U.S. air and ground units on the scene in

Vietnam; one year, only five ships were funded. (5) There was no postwar catch- up period, either, largely because defense spending in general de- clined during the politically trou- bled Nixon/Ford years. There was a modest upturn during the Carter

Administration, but Naval Acada- my graduate Carter and his Secre- tary of Defense, Harold Brown, favored a "Central Front" strategy which emphasized the importance of the air and ground units posi- tioned on NATO's Central Front in

Europe and relegated the Navy and

Marine Corps to a more or less subordinate role. The Iranian hos- tage crisis demonstrated, rather be- latedly, the continuing need for globally deployed naval/maritime forces, but by that time several pri- vate-sector yards already had gone belly up, and the overall shipbuild- ing industrial base was in a state of grim uncertainty. (6) Depression changed to a state of near euphoria soon after Mr.

Reagan was inaugurated and, with

Navy Secretary Lehman and Sec- retary of Defense Caspar Wein- berger acting as spokesmen, an- nounced, articulated, and speedily implemented the previously men- tioned "forward strategy" of de- fense with its emphasis on sea ser- vice forces. In one of Mr. Carter's last acts as President he submitted a fiscal year 1982 budget request that projected, among other things, con- struction of only 14 new ships (at a cost of $6.6 billion) with FY 1982 funding, and only nine ships (cost- ing $6.7 billion) with FY 1983 fund- ing. On 4 March 1981, Mr. Wein- berger unveiled the much revised budget request sent to Congress the previous day and announced that

Mr. Reagan was seeking an addi- tional $32.6 billion for defense. In- cluded in the overall total was $6.8 billion in supplemental funding sought for fiscal year 1981—the then-current fiscal year—and $25.8 billion extra for FY 1982. The latter increases represent the largest peace- time funding add-on for defense programs in U.S. history, and in- cluded $3.8 billion more for FY 1982 shipbuilding programs, bringing the overall SCN (shipbuilding and con- version, Navy) funding request to $10.4 billion." (The 4 March revi- sions also added $367 million to the

FY 1981 SCN budget, and thus pro- vided even earlier relief to the belea- guered U.S. shipbuilding industry.)

Congress has, in general, sup- ported the forward strategy as well, and except for a few minor reduc- tions and stretchouts has approved in toto all of Mr. Reagan's SCN requirements; the $10 billion annual shipbuilding budget is now almost a fixed cost item in the overall De- fense Department budget, and can be expected to remain at or above the $10-12 billion level for at least the next several years, and probably longer.

There are several caveats that should be remembered, though. One is that, media and political criticism to the contrary notwithstanding, the

Reagan Administration has been ex- tremely parsimonious in doling out

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Circle 133 on Reader Service Card 84 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News