Trump's $306 billion Navy plan targets 355 ships by 2040

The U.S. Navy will need 14 years to reach its legally mandated 355-ship battle force, according to a new Pentagon plan that allocates $306 billion to shipbuilding over the next five years.

"Over the past two decades, the shipbuilding budget has doubled, yet we have no more ships now than in 2003. This is a persistent problem," the Navy's 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan said.

The current battle force stands at 291 ships, up from 275 in 2016 but still 64 short of the legal minimum. The fleet will shrink next year before beginning to grow in 2029, reaching 355 by 2040 and approaching 400 by 2056. The plan budgets $268.1 billion for battle force vessels alone, with an additional $37.6 billion for 47 support ships including hospital ships, tankers and landing craft.

The expansion represents a multi-decade revenue windfall for General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls, the primary builders of Navy warships. The plan proposes shifting 50 percent of shipbuilding to distributed sites nationwide, up from 10 percent today, aiming to curb cost overruns that have plagued past programs.

The Navy's strategy employs a high-low mix, spending heavily on aircraft carriers, submarines and battleships at the high end while expanding with less capable but more numerous frigates and littoral combat ships, supplemented by unmanned surface and underwater vessels. Over the 2027-2031 period, the plan calls for 75 crewed warships and 47 uncrewed vessels.

The last comparable naval buildup occurred under President Ronald Reagan, who pushed the fleet to 594 ships in 1987. That force declined steadily after the Cold War ended, bottoming at 275 ships in 2016. The current plan's 37 percent increase over 30 years implies building roughly a dozen ships annually, a pace the Navy considers achievable if its industrial-base reforms succeed.

How the money flows

General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls stand as the primary beneficiaries of the near-term spending. The Navy's five-year procurement plan allocates $268.1 billion for battle force ships, the category dominated by these two contractors. Smaller shipyards may build AS(X) submarine tenders, T-AGOS spy ships and many of the medium unmanned surface vessels, broadening the industrial base.

The plan acknowledges that technology could reshape the fleet composition over three decades. "In future decades, we could see one or more of these crewed ship types replaced by uncrewed surface and uncrewed underwater vessels," the document states, leaving open the possibility that drone aircraft carriers and autonomous warships could alter the procurement pipeline.

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