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i 

95–316 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–41] 

CAPACITY OF U.S. NAVY TO 

PROJECT POWER WITH LARGE 

SURFACE COMBATANTS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND 

PROJECTION FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JUNE 17, 2015 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia, Chairman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

DAVID SIENICKI, Professional Staff Member 

PHIL MACNAUGHTON, Professional Staff Member 

KATHERINE REMBER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy, a Representative from Virginia, Chairman, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces ........................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Fanta, RADM Peter, USN, Director, Surface Warfare (N96), U.S. Navy ........... 2 

Mercado, RADM Victorino G. ‘‘Vic,’’ USN, Director, Assessment Division 

(N81), U.S. Navy .................................................................................................. 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Forbes, Hon. J. Randy ...................................................................................... 29 

Mercado, RADM Victorino G. ‘‘Vic,’’ joint with RADM Peter Fanta ............ 31 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

CAPACITY OF U.S. NAVY TO PROJECT POWER WITH 

LARGE SURFACE COMBATANTS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, June 17, 2015. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:02 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Randy Forbes (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. J. RANDY FORBES, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. FORBES. We want to welcome everyone to this hearing on the 

Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee regarding the capacity of the U.S. Navy to project power with large surface combatants. I am going to, in the interest of time, waive my opening statement and put that in the record because we understand we may 

have votes at about 3:15 and we think this is an important hearing. We want to make sure we get as much of it in as possible. 

We are delighted today to have two witnesses that have a great 

deal of expertise in this matter. We have with us Rear Admiral 

Peter Fanta, Director of Surface Warfare, and also Rear Admiral 

Vic Mercado, the Director of the Assessment Division. 

And in just a moment I am going to ask—I think, Admiral 

Fanta, you are going to give the opening statement for both. But 

I would like also, Admiral Mercado, if you would take just a moment after that opening statement and give us a brief overview of 

what the director of the Assessment Division does. 

And Admiral, also after your opening statement, if you would tell 

us a little bit about your capacity as director of Surface Warfare, 

so our members have a good feeling of the capacity you bring to 

the committee. 

With that, I would like to recognize my ranking member, Mr. 

Courtney, for any comments that he might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes can be found in the Appendix on page 29.] 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, in the interest of time I am going to waive all opening remarks and make 

sure the floor is available to our two witnesses as soon as possible. 

Mr. FORBES. Without objection, we will put all of the opening 

statements and make them a part of the record. And with that, Admiral Fanta, we look forward to any opening remarks you may 

have for us. 
2 

STATEMENT OF RADM PETER FANTA, USN, DIRECTOR, 

SURFACE WARFARE (N96), U.S. NAVY 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member Courtney. I will keep this brief so we can get to your questions and hopefully satisfy you with our answers. 

You asked us today to discuss the capacity of the large surface 

combatants in the United States Navy [to] project power. The 

cruisers and destroyers we have of today were created during the 

height of the Cold War. That said, we didn’t rest on our laurels. 

We have continued to upgrade them and modernize them over the 

past 30 to 40 years of their service life, and we will continue to do 

so. 

We took that technology that was in there from the 1960s and 

1970s and we have continued to modernize it and evolve it, and in 

fact, the technology going in today’s destroyers are the height of 

what is available around the world in that level of surface combatant. 

Bottom line is, we are installing these advanced technologies on 

our new surface combatants because if we cannot own the seas and 

control the seas, we cannot project power from the seas. 

You asked us about the capacity of large surface combatants to 

project power. The answer is not a simple one, but really a threephased question and a three-phased answer. 

We have the fight today and what is our capacity and capability 

to do that. We have the fight in the near- to midterm, maybe 5 or 

maybe 10 to 15 years from now. And we have a peacetime presence 

and deterrence mission. All those have to be factored in, as my colleague, Admiral Mercado, will tell you about how he factors all 

those when he checks my math on whether I have enough ships. 

So it is really not just about a single answer, but it is a multitude 

of answers we have to put together. 

If you ask me about the fight today and can we win against a 

near-peer adversary, the answer is, absolutely. Now there is always 

risk in war and we might take some damage here and there, but 

against a near-peer adversary in a fight today against the United 

States Navy, we will prevail. 

That is based upon our best intelligence estimates of what is out 

there throughout the world and what our capabilities are against 

those assets. But that is today. 

Tomorrow’s fight is slightly different, and it must be an estimate 

of where we think we will get in tomorrow’s fight. And that fight 

may be 10, 15, or 20 years down the road. And again, you are asking us to provide our best guess on what we see based on what is 

evolving in technology and where our current technology is to 

counter these new threats. 

So what we will tell you here is that we see risk in tomorrow’s 

fight. If we do not modernize fast enough, if we do not build fast 

enough, if we slow down our build rate of large surface combatants, 

if we slow down our modernization rate of large surface combatants, there will be a risk when the advanced threats arrive in numbers from the development stages they are in now to a production 

stage from a potential adversary sometime in the next decade-plus. 

That is the war fight. 
3 

I will keep this brief and just quickly describe the noncombat operations or the presence operations. Those are governed by what 

we call the Optimized Fleet Response Plan. That is basically a long 

sentence to tell you how long we deploy for and how often. We deploy optimally for 7 months out of every 36. The rest of that time 

we are not sitting there, but we are training, we are modernizing 

our ships, we are maintaining our ships, and we are making sure 

our sailors know how to fight our ships. 

We also maintain a surge capability in case something comes up 

in the world. So that is that blend that we have between today’s 

fight, the fight of tomorrow 10 to 15 years down the road, and what 

we have for peacetime presence. 

When I don’t have enough ships, I have to take risk or I incur 

risk, and that is whether in the war fight or in the peacetime presence requirements somewhere around the world. We will talk to 

you about, when asked, about ballistic missile requirements, about 

high-end warfighter requirements, about peacetime presence requirements, and what that capability and capacity mix is between 

them. 

It is not just about large surface combatants. I am the director 

of Surface Warfare for the United States Navy. You asked what I 

do. I buy not only ships and weapons systems, I also buy the sailors—I pay for the sailors that man them. I make sure they are 

trained and pay for their training. 

I buy everything from training systems to Tomahawk cruise missiles. I buy civilian manpower, and I buy civilian milling machines 

in our shipyards. I buy everything from advanced weapons systems 

to sailors to sonars. 

Funding all these puts pressure on just the simple number of capacity of our large surface ships to do their job, but I have to have 

this blend of high-end capability and the numbers we need. It takes 

me 15 years to develop and field a new ship. It takes me 7 years 

to develop and field a new weapon system. I have to make sure I 

am keeping an eye on both of those to make sure that someplace 

15 years down the road we are not short on ships or we don’t have 

an advanced capability that does not allow us to win the future 

war fight. 

So whether we are at wartime steaming or peacetime presence 

operations, the number of ships determines if we are at sea. The 

sailors, weapons, readiness determines how capable and lethal we 

are. Presence without lethality and without a capable force is impotence. Presence with a lethal and capable force is deterrence 

against any future adversary. 

With that, we are standing by to answer your questions. I have 

already described slightly what I do. I buy surface ships, weapons, 

sailors, training, modernization, maintenance, and everything in 

between. 

I own the movies that they watch in the evening when they are 

off watch. I own putting ice cream machines on the mess decks so 

they can put on that extra 5 pounds in deployment. I also own the 

ability to shoot down long-range ballistic missiles when they are 

coming at our carriers. I own that range of everything that you see, 

and I make sure our sailors are ready to operate and maintain 

these systems. 
4 

Over to my colleague, Admiral Mercado. 

[The joint prepared statement of Admiral Fanta and Admiral 

Mercado can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] 

STATEMENT OF RADM VICTORINO G. ‘‘VIC’’ MERCADO, USN, 

DIRECTOR, ASSESSMENT DIVISION (N81), U.S. NAVY 

Admiral MERCADO. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, 

thank you for allowing me to appear before you today. The best 

way to describe my job, and Admiral Fanta alluded to it, is I grade 

homework. I am the director of Assessments Division. As you all 

well understand that we have many, many competing requirements 

and we have very limited resources, or a finite number of resources. 

So I have a team that goes through and assess all the programs 

and things that Navy can invest in and give my recommendation 

to the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations], based on a priority of 

what I call integrated warfighting. So we have threats that are out 

there that we project out into the future in the near term, and then 

we have a number of programs designed to pace or outpace those 

threats. My job is to review those, assess them based on data, and 

make the recommendation to the CNO. 

I have been in this job now for about 6 weeks, and previously I 

commanded Carrier Strike Group Eight out of Norfolk. 

[The joint prepared statement of Admiral Mercado and Admiral 

Fanta can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] 

Mr. FORBES. Well, thank you both for being here. I am going to 

use just a little bit of my time for my opening statement for questioning, but help me, and either of you can respond to these. No 

magic in the order or who would respond. 

But as we look right now, one of the concerns we have, of course, 

is with our surface combatants and how many we are going to need 

as we look out to the future. But also one of the things that impacts that is the deployment cycles that we are on right now. Both 

of you have spoken with Mr. Courtney and I about the concern we 

have with current deployments being as much as 9 months on 

some of our ships. 

Can you tell me why that has a negative impact and what we 

are doing to try to mitigate that and reduce those down? 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir. Average deployment length right now 

that we are seeing across the Navy is 9.2 months, based on the 

data we have seen over the last about 2 years. That is a function 

of being everywhere to cover every contingency that we have been 

asked to for the last several years. 

Some ships that we have have been on four deployments in 4 

years. We recognize that is a strain on our force. That is a strain 

on our sailors, that is a strain on the ships themselves, that is a 

strain on whether I can modernize them fast enough, and that is 

a strain on, frankly, our resources and our funding. Because every 

time I keep it out at sea I have to bring it back and fix even more 

things because I am exceeding that 7 months out of 36 that I would 

ideally deploy a ship. 

So what we are doing to counter that is we are establishing, as 

I said in my opening statement, this fleet response plan that allows 

us to get on a steady-state operation that blends this moderniza-
5 

tion, maintenance, training, and surge time to match what we 

would ideally like to be a 7-month deployment out of a 36-month 

cycle. 

We are not there yet. We have just deployed our first—or we 

have just put our first strike group into that process. This is a 

learning time for us to see where the pivots and where the shortfalls are on it, but we are on the track to get to that stability, and 

our intention is to get to that stability in the late teens to early 

2020s with the full-up strike groups being on that cycle. 

With the number of ships we have right now, that will be a challenge, but as you know, I am building ships at a rate and keeping 

ships on board at a rate that I expect in the early 2020s allow me 

to get to those deployment cycles of maybe not 7 months but someplace between 7 and 8 months. 

Mr. FORBES. So would it be fair to say, as you just mentioned, 

that the number of ships has a huge impact on whether you can 

get down from that 9.2 to your goal of 7? 

Admiral FANTA. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. FORBES. And would it also be fair to say that if you don’t get 

down to that goal, as you mentioned it puts an additional strain 

on your sailors, which I take it would mean strain on their families, strain on their lives, and maybe even strain on your difficulty 

in retaining those sailors. 

Admiral FANTA. All those are a blend, sir. When we resource 

this, all of this, we have to put all of this together, and that includes the recruiting of new sailors and the retention of current 

sailors. 

Mr. FORBES. So it would have an impact on both the recruitment 

of new sailors and the retention of existing. 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir, it would. 

Mr. FORBES. Also it has an impact on the lifecycle of our ships 

and how many years we can get out of those ships. Is that fair to 

say? 

Admiral FANTA. I can’t tell you an exact number, but if I deploy 

four times in 4 years, there will be an impact on whether I can get 

that ship to 35 years of service life, 38 years of service life, or ideally what I would like to do, 40 years of service life. 

Mr. FORBES. And if we don’t have the number of ships that we 

need, you mentioned two things in your opening statement, and I 

know I specifically told you that you didn’t have to put your written statement in, but in your written statement you talked about 

a third. So you mentioned war fight and peacetime presence. 

But also both of you in your combined written statement talked 

about the importance of deterrence, and that is a part, I guess, of 

the peacetime presence. Is that correct? 

Admiral MERCADO. Yes, sir. I say it is a combination. It is a part 

of our peacetime presence, but also that high-end warfighting capability that we have strategically as a Navy I think serves to underpin any kind of deterrence whole-of-government model. So yes, we 

have to be there and we have to be forward deployed. We have to 

support the COCOM [combatant command] demand and the peacetime presence as outlined in their theater campaign plans. 

But also we need to preserve our capability and capacity to conduct high-end warfare against a near-peer competitor. As long as 
6 

we also show that and demonstrate that, I say that also underpins 

any deterrence strategy. 

Mr. FORBES. So it would be fair to say if we have fewer ships, 

if we don’t have the deployment time so that we can do the highend training that you would need, it could impact our deterrence 

capabilities. 

Admiral MERCADO. Yes, sir, and I think the fleet response plan 

model that Admiral Fanta talked about helps us get on that road. 

I mean, we need to get discipline into starting our availabilities on 

time, ending them so we can go into a consolidated basic training 

phase and get the ships trained in the basics of getting underway 

and fighting the ships individually. 

Then we go into what we call the integrated phase so we can 

get—gather them together to fight as a carrier strike group. 

Mr. FORBES. So—I am sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off. 

Admiral MERCADO. I am saying what we lose when you talked 

about continuous deployments, we lose that opportunity to go back 

and bring the ships back, to get them into that training cycle because high-end warfare capability and training atrophies over time 

because even when you are deployed and you face an adversary, it 

is never to the level that you see when you ramp up during your 

training in the fleet response plan. 

Mr. FORBES. So if I look at that fleet response plan, and Admiral 

Fanta, maybe you can help me with this, but we were also talking 

about our BMD [ballistic missile defense] requirements. And as I 

understand it, the current BMD requirements are 40. I think your 

goal, and you now have 33 ships. Is that correct? Don’t let me put 

words in your mouth. Tell me if I am incorrect. 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir. My requirement at this point is 40 advanced capability ships that have the capability of both knocking 

down an incoming ballistic missile while simultaneously looking for 

and firing upon an incoming cruise missile that is at the surface 

of the ocean. So that is a minimum of 40 advanced capability ballistic missile ships. 

I have approximately 33 ballistic missile capable ships. That is 

not to say they are advanced to that level. And we will reach that 

in a current build rate of that 40 ships in approximately the mid2020s at this point, of those advanced capability ships, sir. 

Mr. FORBES. So you need on your requirements 40 with the advanced capabilities. Right now you have 33, but they do not all 

have advanced capabilities on them. 

Admiral FANTA. That is correct, sir. We are modernizing those 

ships, and we are building more with the advanced capability even 

as we speak. 

Mr. FORBES. Does your fleet modernization plan apply to the 

BMD ships, as well? 

Admiral FANTA. Ideally it will when we implement it, but at this 

point—— 

Mr. FORBES. I am sorry, the fleet response plan. 

Admiral FANTA. The fleet response plan, yes, sir. Ideally it will. 

At this point it is primarily—we have started it around the carrier 

strike group. A lot of the ballistic missile deployers are independent 

deployers, so what we would do eventually is to bring them into 

that response plan. They are not necessarily currently under that 
7 

cycle. That would be out toward the 2020s before we put all these 

together. 

Mr. FORBES. So it would be fair to say that today we have the 

need for 40 with the advanced capability. We only have 33, and 

they do not all have the advanced capabilities. And that right now 

we do not really have a plan of getting those deployments down 

from the average 9.2 to 7 or something around there for our BMDcapable ships. Is that fair? 

Admiral FANTA. Let me adjust that slightly, sir. There is a difference because the advanced capability ships are primarily used to 

defend Navy assets in a high-end fight at sea against a near-peer 

competitor with advanced capabilities. The BMD ships that I spoke 

of earlier that we have in the low 30s right now and continue to 

build more, are primarily for COCOM requests to defend other assets such as defended asset lists in various parts of the world. 

So they are perfectly capable of handling advanced threats, but 

just in that one BMD capability. What we don’t want to do is mix 

the peacetime presence requirement of those—I won’t call them 

lesser capable, but baseline capability ballistic missile ships with 

the advanced ones I need to beat a high-end competitor at sea in 

the middle of a fight in the middle of the ocean. 

Mr. FORBES. And I am going to try not to be too much longer, 

but I just want to make sure I have got this. On the 40-ship requirement that you have, and I know that is for the advanced capability, you now have 33 BMD-capable ships, not all with the advanced capability. 

But it is my understanding from what you have said that I really 

do not at this time—I hope to later—have a plan that will help me 

get the deployments down on the ships that I have from that 9.2 

to roughly 7 to 8 months at that time. Is that fair? 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir, that is fair. It is not that we don’t have 

a plan. It is that we need to get to the numbers to allow us to implement. 

Mr. FORBES. So you would need more numbers to get there. 

Admiral FANTA. I would need more total numbers of capability, 

not capacity. In other words, I need to modernize to get to those 

numbers. 

Mr. FORBES. So you would need more numbers to get there, and 

then two last bullet points and then I will shift to Mr. Courtney. 

The demand signal is actually much higher than the requirements. 

Your current demand signal from the COCOMs for BMD ships 

would be around 77 ships. Is that fair to say? 

Admiral FANTA. The demand signal is twofold, sir, for a high-end 

naval war fight and protection of naval assets and our bases that 

we need to fight in various places of the world is those 40 ships 

I discussed. 

Mr. FORBES. Okay. 

Admiral FANTA. On top of that, COCOMs have a requirement, 

and if you look at it from another X number of spots, today it might 

be 77, all right, total ships, including the 40, 77 spots around the 

world that we might put a ballistic missile defense ship to cover 

some contingency of some nation threatening us or threatening an 

ally or threatening a vital asset with a ballistic missile at that 

point. 
8 

So if you don’t think upon it as I need a ship there all the time, 

it is a spot in the ocean where I might need a ship sometime in 

the future against a potential adversary that threatens us or an 

ally. 

Mr. FORBES. But you can’t cover all of that today with the current fleet that we have. Would that be fair to say? 

Admiral FANTA. That is fair. I need to modernize to get to those 

numbers. 

Mr. FORBES. And you need more numbers. 

Admiral FANTA. I need to at least modernize. If I have every ship 

modernized to the point where every ship can handle that threat, 

then the numbers work out correctly. 

Mr. FORBES. Let us go back to the 33 that you have got. Would 

it help you if this committee could help you get 3 more ships and 

you had 36 versus 33? 

Admiral FANTA. It depends on when, because—— 

Mr. FORBES. Suppose we could give them to you tomorrow. 

Admiral FANTA. Then it would always help, yes, sir. 

Mr. FORBES. Suppose I could get you, instead of three I could get 

you six. Would that help you better than the three? 

Admiral FANTA. I can’t build them that fast but—— 

Mr. FORBES. But let us assume I could. 

Admiral FANTA. If you could, absolutely. 

Mr. FORBES. The flipside, would it hurt you if you had less than 

the 33? 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir. From a warfighting perspective. 

Mr. FORBES. Then tell me how in the world the Navy can suggest 

that we can take out 11 cruisers when 5 of those have BMD capability on them. 

Admiral FANTA. Because of the way that I am blending in the capability, that advanced capability. 

Mr. FORBES. That is not my question. I don’t want to put you on 

a difficult spot, but here is what I am saying. You have just told 

me if you have five more, it will help you significantly. 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FORBES. We have got five cruisers out there with BMD capability that the Navy is telling me they want us to pull offline today. 

So I am not promising you those next month or 6 years. I am saying, you have got them today, and the Navy is telling me they want 

to take them out of that fleet. 

It has got to make sense that that would hurt us and stretch us 

on our BMD capabilities that we currently are looking at today. So 

explain to me how that would not. 

Admiral FANTA. Yes. First answer is yes. 

Mr. FORBES. Okay. 

Admiral FANTA. Second—— 

Mr. FORBES. Go ahead. I don’t want to cut you off. You answer. 

Admiral FANTA. I have more concerns 5 to 7 years from now 

when the numbers of threats increase—— 

Mr. FORBES. I have got you there. 

Admiral FANTA [continuing]. So I would rather have those cruisers available at that time. 

Mr. FORBES. But what you are saying is, and you have been fair 

in saying this, you are taking risks today so that you will have 
9 

them tomorrow. But what we are also saying is, and the Navy is 

telling us this because the Navy, when they first came out, suggested we took seven of those cruisers out. Never even talked about 

having them tomorrow. The Navy doesn’t have them in their FYDP 

[Future Years Defense Program] at all. 

Basically what I think we can agree on is if you have five less 

BMD-capable ships, it is going to be much more difficult for you, 

at least in the short term, than if you had those five cruisers. Is 

that fair to say? 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. FORBES. With that, I ask Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to both witnesses 

for your testimony and your service. Again, I just want to sort of 

go back over a point that the chairman touched on a moment ago, 

which is the request from the combatant commanders, which we 

hear a lot about on this committee, and then obviously the Optimized Fleet Response Plan. 

How do they sort of intersect and, you know, does someone have 

to kind of adjudicate, you know, the signals and the plan? 

Admiral MERCADO. Sir, when we talk about the requirement, we 

have talked about—I think you have been briefed on this force 

structure analysis and the number has been talked about 40 BMD. 

So if we talk about 40 BMD, that is the latest update we did to 

the force structure analysis that defines what the BMD requirement is for Navy-unique missions. Which is, you know, we have 

ships that defend fixed land sites. So if we needed to come up with 

a number, say, to defend the sea base and to defend expeditionary 

sites, the number for that is 40. 

Now when you get into COCOM demand, they will put out today’s requirement, and based on situations that are evolving, we 

see Syria, any number of situations, so the COCOMs will come up 

and say, here is the demand. We need two, three, five sites. I guess 

the 77 number is their potential sites for all COCOMs that they 

have identified that they could use a BMD ship for. 

So when that demand comes in, based on the inventory that we 

have available today, not out of maintenance or things, then we 

will try to source that. If we cannot then it has to be adjudicated. 

Then we go back and work with the COCOM Navy, COCOM Joint 

Staff, and OSD [Office of Secretary of Defense] to adjudicate who— 

which COCOM will get the ship and which will not. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Again, talking about the short term which you 

alluded to a moment ago. I mean, the balloon goes up if there is 

just some all-out conflict going on which we have a national security interest in and the order goes out. I mean, you have obviously 

got the structured force plan. 

But describe what happens if that is the case. Does the plan get 

set aside and, you know, all hands on deck? 

Admiral FANTA. Sir, the plan is just for peacetime and presence 

operations to allow us that stability. If the balloon goes up as you 

describe it, we surge everything that we need as fast as we can. 

We have faith in both the industrial capability of the country to 

patch up in days and weeks what it normally takes months and 

years to do. 
10 

We have faith in our training systems and our training that our 

sailors will be ready. We will strip everybody from every schoolhouse as an instructor that has already got that high-end knowledge and put them to sea, and plus-up where we need to go, and 

we will go fight and we will take everything, and we will put it into 

that fight. Now that is against a high-end near-peer competitor. 

But we will surge everything we have, and we have sufficient capacity to do that at this point. 

One of our assumptions is that if we get into a fight, all this nice 

time about how long you are at home and how long you are at sea 

and how much time you get from maintenance goes right out the 

window and we go fight the fight. We don’t stick to a plan just because something, you know, something else happens in the world. 

Yes, sir. 

Mr. COURTNEY. And your testimony, Admiral, earlier was that 

you feel that, you know, in terms of a near-peer competitor, I 

mean, right today in the near term we are actually in a strong position to, you know, make sure that our country is protected. 

Admiral FANTA. I have sufficient capability and capacity in my 

large surface combatants. I will not speak for the rest of the Navy. 

I get to be very parochial in my job. I get to deal with surface warfare only. Of my large surface combatants, to fight that large fight 

today, against the capability and capacity that I see out there in 

advanced threats from a near-peer aggressor. 

Mr. COURTNEY. So looking out 10 years from now or 15 years 

from now, I mean, what keeps you up awake in terms of—or at 

night, rather, what keeps you awake at night thinking about that 

timeframe? 

Admiral FANTA. So I am concerned that I will not be able to modernize, or build new, fast enough to be able to get to the capacity 

you and the chairman have mentioned, in that 10 plus or minus 

year period. So I right now, based on what we assume and what 

we think will happen around the world on build rates of advanced 

weapons, that is where we start to worry about the capacity and 

capability. That is where we think that our biggest risk lies right 

now, and that is what we are judging ourselves against. 

Mr. COURTNEY. And the existing shipbuilding plan talks about, 

again, the number of large surface combatants starting to go up 

probably within the next decade or so. I mean, does that give you 

some sort of margin for error? 

Admiral FANTA. So my shipbuilding plan in the late teens, early 

2020s, exceeds my current 88 number that we have set as a minimum of Navy large surface combatants. I get to just over 100, and 

then my decision point becomes on whether I can keep the oldest 

destroyers, that, by the way, I am modernizing first right now with 

some advanced capability. 

If I can keep those to more than 35 years of life then I can 

stretch them for about 5 years to 40 years of life. These are large 

capital investments. Surface shipbuilding of any sort is the largest 

single expenditure other than entitlements the United States Government bestows on any program, so we intend to keep those as 

long as possible. 
11 

Allowing us to keep those to 40 years by maintenance and modernization then keeps me above that 88 minimum requirement well 

into the mid-2020s, sir. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Which just about coincides with the Ohio replacement sort of surge in the budget, which again, the shipbuilding 

plan assumes that future Congresses are going to find money for 

that, or that we are going to implement our Sea-Based Deterrence 

Fund to, you know, shield the rest of the fleet. But again, I mean, 

that is actually not a bad hedge to deal with that challenge, which 

is going to be, you know, definitely a reality for the Navy in the 

2020s. 

Admiral MERCADO. Sir, I would say that you have hit on my biggest concern. First of all, since I look across the spectrum, I can 

say that our assessment is that as a Navy we can deal with a nearpeer competitor with some risk. The number that we have talked 

about here, 88, is the minimum requirement that we see we need 

to address steady-state requirements, and the most stressing scenario that we see, which is a near-peer competitor fight. 

But those numbers also assume that the ships are properly 

maintained so that they—and used so that they reach their expected service life. If that doesn’t happen then that is a concern. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Conaway is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, thank you. 

Thank you, gentlemen. If we had more than one high-end nearpeer competitor come at us, the assessment looks like what? At the 

same time. 

Admiral FANTA. If we have more than one high-end near-peer 

competitor today, as far as numbers we would split our forces and 

the risk would increase. I cannot tell you that. It depends on the 

scenario, the ocean, where we are, and how determined we both 

are. 

Admiral MERCADO. My assessment, sir, is based on a single nearpeer competitor. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Right. Seven-month deployment, existing ships. 

You guys live this stuff every day. It is second nature, and members of the committee have a little bit better understanding, but we 

have got to convince other folks in this conference that don’t have 

the insights as to what that looks like and why it is important that 

we get there. We need graphics or metrics. 

Can you describe what, if you take—if you were limited to 7- 

month deployments with these ships, obviously the other stretch is 

you are not everywhere you need to be or you want to be, and you 

are not doing all these other kind of things. 

How do we describe to other policy deciders what that gap looks 

like from if you—you know, if you were just sticking with the 7 

month in this deal versus what we give up, where we are not, all 

those other kind of risks that associate. 

Is there a way to put that into graphics and easily understood, 

you know, 1-minute elevator kind of talk? 

Admiral MERCADO. Sir, if you are looking where we are operating 

today, we have essentially a carrier operating forward deployed in 

Yokosuka, Japan, a carrier strike group. And we also have a carrier now operating in the Middle East. 
12 

So if you talk about what the fleet response plan does, it allows 

us to maintain at least two carriers deployed, but more importantly, it—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. But that is with 9-plus month deployments. 

Admiral MERCADO. No, sir, this is still with the 7-month deployment construct in a 36-month cycle. But what it does allow us to 

generate is three additional strike groups ready to surge in an 

amount of time. 

Mr. CONAWAY. So the differential between where we are right 

now and where you would like to get to is three carrier strike 

groups. 

Admiral MERCADO. Yes, sir. We are at two and we want to build 

up our capacity to surge to five, with three on standby in a certain 

amount of time and this will allow us to do that. In the past—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. But that doesn’t get you to 7-month deployments 

now. 

Admiral FANTA. Let me put this. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Trying to get you to 7—— 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir. So 7-month deployments. So when we 

were at almost 600 ships, we were deploying approximately 100 

ships at a year across the world. Right now we are at around 300 

ships and we are still deploying 100 ships around the world. 

When we do that, we stretch these out. When I was in the Middle East, sir, one of my ships went to 111⁄2 months and they set 

the record for the longest deployment out there. 

Mr. CONAWAY. We are on the same side of this. I am just trying 

to figure out a way. How do I communicate those issues to folks 

who really don’t know much about it and say, all right, here is the 

risk, here is the gap. If we went to 7 months—if Congress put in 

the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] that you couldn’t 

have a ship at sea more than 7 months out of 36, subject to a fight, 

you know, we are going to have to say, well, we can’t be everywhere we are right now. 

Because you are taking whatever ships you have got, and you are 

stretching across all those requirements to make that happen. I am 

just trying to get a feel for what we don’t get to do if we went to 

the—if we had the capacity that you wanted. 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir. If I look at it from that perspective that 

you are trying to put this in a contextual sense; 7 months out of 

36 I miss one birthday or one Christmas every 3 years, all right. 

I miss one anniversary every 3 years. Right now I am at 9 out of 

27, which means I am up at missing 2 birthdays, 2 Christmases, 

and 2 anniversaries every 21⁄2 years. 

If I go and keep going on this path and I hit beyond nine, at that 

point I don’t watch softball games, Christmases, etc. 

Admiral MERCADO. Sir, Carl Vincent just came back from deployment. She did a little over 9 months, to San Diego, and my son was 

part of that deployment. I just came from the fleet and we have 

planned now to schedule our future deployments at 7 months. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. Let me ask you this, Admiral Mercado. You 

mentioned all of government. We want to make sure all of Defense 

is in this fight. Are there folks just like you at the other services 

doing the same kind of analysis work on refereeing between all the 

various things, and then do you guys talk to each other, and how? 
13 

Admiral MERCADO. Yes, sir. I have already spoken to my Marine 

counterpart once. I am fairly new in the job so I am reaching out 

to my Air Force counterpart. I have not spoken to my Army counterpart as yet. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. There may be some value in making sure 

that you guys all talk to each other. 

Yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thanks, gentlemen, for your service and the happy news today. 

Mr. FORBES. In a follow-up to Mr. Conaway’s questioning, have 

you guys done any war-gaming in conjunction with our new strategy, and if so, what does that suggest in terms of the additional 

large surface combatants that we will be needing? 

Admiral FANTA. A lot of the war-gaming, sir, we have been doing 

with the numbers we expect to have. What we do now is we now 

war-game with advanced weapons capabilities that actually increase the capability of those ships that we will have. 

As I said, it takes years to build a ship, so what I am really 

doing now is increasing the capability of those ships, no matter 

how many I have and how long I have them, and getting them to 

be more lethal and getting them to see more, to allow me to have 

that deterrence so the fight doesn’t start. 

Mr. FORBES. At some point in time what we would just like for 

maybe you to do is come over and give us a briefing to follow up 

with what Mr. Conaway was saying, not of what we are trying to 

get to but of what the war-gaming would show we would have 

today if we had to be in one of those fights. 

Admiral FANTA. We can do that, yes, sir. 

Mr. FORBES. With that we recognize the distinguished lady from 

Guam, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral Fanta, and 

of course Admiral Mercado, it is good to see you again. Thank you 

both for your testimonies today. 

My first question is regarding large surface combatants’ role in 

the rebalance strategy. As we continue to rebalance to the AsiaPacific region, can we assume that this will lead to an increased 

emphasis on Pacific deployments for amphibious readiness groups 

and their L-class ships? Either one of you. Just a yes or a no. 

Admiral FANTA. So on the large surface combatants, the first capability I have of the advanced capability ships are being deployed 

to the Pacific, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Okay. Admiral. 

Admiral MERCADO. I think by our presence and how we are increasing our presence and putting our most capable ships there, I 

think the answer is yes, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Concurrently, recent events in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East highlight ever-increasing 

requirements and commitments, despite a decreasing number of 

large surface combatants. 

Now for instance, it is reported that combatant commanders receive less than half of their Amphibious Readiness Groups, Marine 

Expeditionary Unit requirements. How do we resolve this dilemma? 

Admiral MERCADO. Having just come from CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command], that Marine amphibious units and the amphibious 
14 

ships that support them are hugely valuable and in high demand, 

as you know. So I think to support the Marines have established 

a special purpose MAGTF [Marine Air-Ground Task Force] to increase their presence and enhance their response. 

We have to be able to support them, so I know from a force provider standpoint, again, we have to contain two biases: CNO wants 

us to be forward, and I know whatever we can’t provide, you know, 

that has to be adjudicated. 

Ms. BORDALLO. All right, thank you. Now I have one final question. With the proliferation of long-range precision strike missiles 

and sophisticated anti-access/area denial [A2/AD] systems throughout the Persian Gulf and in the Western Pacific, what is being done 

to ensure access into these contested regions? And what role do 

amphibious forces play in peeling back these A2/AD rings to ensure 

access to contested maritime and littoral domains? 

Admiral MERCADO. I would say from a capability standpoint the 

capabilities that would peel that back would fall primarily on the 

large surface combatants and the aircraft carriers, along with our 

partners in the Air Force, and also the submarines, because, you 

know, that is where we—that is the capability and the capacity 

that we have to do that to help support and gain access for our amphibious ships. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Any comments, Admiral Fanta? 

Admiral FANTA. Ma’am, from the perspective of if I have lethal 

capability on my ships and I shoot first and I shoot further, they 

have to stay further away. And I get more of a shot and I get more 

defensive and offensive capability. 

From the Marines’ amphibious strike groups that are deploying 

now, we have to understand that they are about to start deploying 

the Joint Strike Fighter, which is the first fifth-generation fighter 

we will have at sea, whether that is Navy or Marine Corps, and 

that will give us a significant advantage in that high-end fight. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield 

back. 

Mr. FORBES. I thank the gentlelady, and we recognize now the 

gentleman from California, Mr. Cook, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You answered one of my questions about the F–35B, but this—all the talk about missiles. I am 

a little bit unclear. I will show my ignorance right now by talking 

about the Aegis missile system, and particularly the role of the system that is going to be in Romania. 

You know, obviously we are going to not be discussing about 

moving it from point A to point B. Romania is a big anchor to pull 

up and move, but how do you think this experiment is going to play 

out in terms of fleet projection if you have got one stationary site 

there with covering all these different areas there. Is that going to 

relieve part of the deployment pressure? 

Admiral FANTA. So the two things that blend together. One, the 

Romania site is a defense of Europe site, and from that perspective 

it is put in a spot that allows us to take care of, without going classified, the most likely threat against that area. 

What it adds to is it allows us to move our destroyers, and we 

have forward deployed four destroyers out of Rota, Spain, to currently cover that mission. It allows us to, one, cover more areas, 
15 

and two, cover more missions than just the ballistic missile mission. So those four forward-deployed ships are right now assigned 

to it and they will see less pressure to be continuously in one or 

two spots in the ocean to do what Romania will pick up. 

Romania plus the future site in Poland will relieve even further 

the pressure on those forward destroyers that we have there. That 

is not to say we will pull them back, because that capability is cumulative, but what we will do is now they don’t have to stay in 

that one spot in the ocean for that length of time. 

Admiral MERCADO. Yes, sir, you are right. We don’t consider that 

a Navy-unique mission. When I talked about peeling back, before, 

we made an assumption that all 85 large surface combatants would 

be BMD-capable, but when we peeled back that onion, it was instructive to assess to sow what the force structure we need for 

Navy-unique missions, and that mission is not Navy-unique. 

Mr. COOK. No, and you are right. I know about NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and everything like that, and Poland. 

I hope that if that works out well in terms of being a success, and 

we do have pressures with all these different deployments and we 

don’t come through with all these ships and everything else, I am 

wondering if at least in terms of gaming this or CPX-ing [command 

post exercise] it or whatever term you are going to use in the future at the war college or what have you, that that being part of 

the plan, because obviously it is part of the NATO plan. 

I have got my fingers crossed because I am not really sure how 

that is going to work out. 

Admiral FANTA. We have two aspects there, sir. It is part of the 

plan, it is part of the war games we exercise. I recognize that these 

ships are forward. They are away from the continental United 

States and they have their own stresses on them, but if I put two 

dozen ships over there, I would still have a waiting list of people 

wanting to go over there and do that mission. 

I have to turn people away in droves to go live in Spain and live 

forward deployed on a destroyer, no matter how tough that mission 

is and how long they are at sea. So it is a combination of sailors 

doing what they want to be, forward and operational, and defending our allies throughout the world. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. The gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Graham, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have quite a large Air 

Force and Navy presence in my district, the Second Congressional 

District in Florida, panhandle essentially, and I have heard from 

both the Air Force, and maybe not so much the Navy, about challenges they face with maintenance. 

I was curious. Are you all facing any difficulties with just the 

maintenance component of keeping your ships ready to go if necessary? 

Admiral FANTA. So we for years have been fighting to drive down 

what we call a backlog in maintenance. We have built up over 

years of multiple rapid deployments that continuously surged to 

wherever the hotspot in the world was, we built up a lot of maintenance backlog that we now have to drive down. 
16 

Just like the Army or the Marines that were in the desert for 

years at a time, stress on their equipment now requires that to 

come back and be reset and recapitalized back in the CONUS [continental United States] to allow them to go through. I have to do 

the same sort of thing. 

The Army puts tanks into depots, the Marines put helicopters 

into depots to get that long-term deep maintenance done. I have to 

put ships into depots to get back to what I need, and that is 35 

to 40 years of life out of each ship. 

Admiral MERCADO. I can also say it is better. Before, it was a 

concern, we were challenged, we had issues. Having just come from 

the fleet, and a lot of my ships and carriers were in maintenance, 

and the maintenance is now getting done. We have just got to now 

be smart about how we do it, make sure again we start and stop 

on time, but now we see the surge where we are getting better with 

our maintenance. 

Ms. GRAHAM. That is really good to hear. You mentioned the 

backlog, Admiral. How long is the backlog, even if it is getting better? 

Admiral FANTA. So we have brought it down from approximately 

3 years’ worth of backlog. We are down to less than a year now. 

We have put a consolidated amount of effort, time, and resources 

against this. Both fleet commanders have taken this on personally, 

both type commanders, the surface forces on both the east and the 

west coast have taken this on personally. 

We have put billions of dollars against getting this backlog down 

and getting to the point where we can have a knowledge of what 

is wrong, a plan to fix it. We have a 6-year plan that we can lay 

out to exactly how much maintenance and modernization has to be 

done every year to stay on that. 

Where we fall short, and frankly, as your colleagues behind you 

were saying earlier, if we have to all of a sudden surge to a crisis, 

that takes up time from this. We are not saying we won’t go. We 

will absolutely go, but it takes up time from getting to this backlog. 

Ms. GRAHAM. Is maintenance and modernization, are those combined? Are they considered the same or are they different? 

Admiral FANTA. Modernization is when I take new systems, as 

the chairman was alluding to, and put new systems on cruisers, 

put new systems on destroyers, put new weapons systems throughout the fleet. That is modernization. 

Maintenance is a pump breaks, I need to put a new seal in it. 

I put it back together, I put it back in the ship and the pump keeps 

working. So we blend those two together a lot of times because it 

goes in the same time. While I am putting a new radar on the ship, 

I am also fixing the pumps that have broken during that period of 

time, ma’am. 

Ms. GRAHAM. That is good common sense. Thank you very much. 

I appreciate your answers very much. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. FORBES. The gentleman from California, Mr. Hunter, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just got a simple 

question. We have been told this whole year, just about by everybody who comes in and briefs the full committee, that all of the 
17 

near-peer competitors are very close to matching us technologically. 

We are all fairly close right now, and it is going to be closer and 

closer as we go forward and other countries have the same software 

engineers that we have here for the most part. 

So my question is, when does quantity trump quality? Chuck 

Yeager told a story, when we were flying prop planes in World War 

II and the Germans had jets, I said, well, gee, that has got to be 

a hard dogfight. How do you shoot down jets? He said, well, they 

were all on the ground, we blew them up. Because they were just 

swarming them. We would just swarm them with prop planes. 

That is my first question is, when does quantity trump quality? 

Admiral FANTA. So quantity is not just in ships, but it is about 

weapons systems I can employ. When we talk about capability and 

capacity, it is not just how many ships I have at sea but how many 

weapons and how capable those weapons are, and from how many 

directions I can hit the adversary. 

What I want to do is hit him from multiple directions and not 

even let him leave port, same thing that Chuck Yeager did during 

World War II. Let me hit him now, let me hit him soon, and if I 

can’t, that is risk to us. If I let him come all the way out, that is 

risk to us. If I let him continue to get all the way around me so 

I have got a 360-degree fight, that is risk to us. 

Now, I understand that may not always be possible, so we have 

to both defend and provide offense. We have to give the best capability we have to defend against those jets versus props, as well as 

now providing an offense to hit them on the ground with bombers 

before we start. 

Admiral MERCADO. Yes, I have to, sir, characterize that in the 

air realm where I look at is, you know, the best example for me 

is that modernization, going from, say, fourth-generation to fifthgeneration fighters. As our air wings evolve from, say, the F–18E/ 

F and the Joint Strike Fighter, and we start to populate our air 

wing with more higher end fighters, the faster we can do that, then 

the exchange ratios between a fifth-generation fighter and a fourthgeneration fighter, you know, are what we like. 

If we don’t do that and we stay onto the fourth-generation model 

then those exchange ratios aren’t really what we want. 

Mr. HUNTER. But the numbers you were giving the chairman 

over there are the numbers of ships. Those numbers were our place 

technologically versus other people right now, other near-peer competitors technologically. The numbers that you gave them represent 

that. 

So if everybody is even, your numbers change dramatically for 

us. We would obviously have to have way more because you 

wouldn’t have that technological edge over a near-peer competitor, 

right? 

Admiral FANTA. So if I characterize it from a physics perspective, 

I think that is maybe the easiest at this point, the faster the missile coming at me and the lower the radar cross-section, if you are 

talking about advanced capability, the more power I have to put 

out of my radar and the more processing I take out of my software. 

That means that I will have to have more of those radars on 

more ships around a wider area to handle a 360-degree fight. 

Sometime in the future when I am fighting in the middle of a 360- 
18 

degree battle against high-end weapon systems, I may have to have 

more ships. 

Vic’s job right now is to model those numbers and tell you what 

they are, and that is what he is doing. 

Admiral MERCADO. When we look at the numbers, because when 

we talk about where the 88 number came from, that is after analysis based on a planning scenario against what we call our most 

stressing environment, which is that near-peer competitor. 

That is where we come up with the minimum number to be able 

to defeat that threat. The minimum number. So your point is well 

taken. That number does matter. The 11 carriers, 88 large surface 

combatants, those numbers do matter, but they are minimum. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Wittman, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral Fanta, Admiral Mercado, thank you so much for joining 

us. I want to ask a question related to how aircraft impact our 

large surface combatants. As you know, the F–35B is in the process 

of achieving IOC [initial operational capability] as its capability 

and as, you know, we are bringing on the F–35C, hoping that it 

gets ramped up, is able to be deployed with our carrier strike 

groups. 

How will the increased capability that comes with those aircraft, 

both in large-deck amphibs, but also there in the aircraft carrier 

fleet, how is that going to affect the employment of large surface 

combatants then as part of carrier strike groups within the overall 

projection of power within the Navy? 

Admiral FANTA. So broadly, the further back I can keep the adversary from shooting with a fifth-generation fighter pushing out 

deeper into his area, the less missiles come at me. Tactically that 

is more sensors in the air to look for incoming threats. 

Every time we put a fifth-generation aircraft with its sensors in 

the air, that is more things I have looking for incoming threats, 

which means the more data I have to my ships, even the large surface combatants, to understand where those threats are coming 

from and to be ready for it, and to counter that threat well before 

it gets to me. 

So it is both the fight in the long-range, it is the fight in the high 

end, and it is the number of sensors, advanced sensors I have in 

the air at any one time. 

Admiral MERCADO. I would say, sir, any carrier strike group environment, you know, we always talk about defense in depth. So 

while we have the number of five surface combatants, three BMDcapable, AAW-capable [anti-aircraft warfare], now we have that 

layer whereby that Joint Strike Fighter can be that outer ring defense. 

It still matters, a fifth-generation fighter against a fifth-generation adversary. And it is complementary, so our ships can help control that Joint Strike Fighter. And then we also have the E–2s and 

things like that so we can fight alongside as well as our Air Force 

and Marine brothers. 
19 

Mr. WITTMAN. Got you. Let me ask about the 35–B as part of our 

amphibious—our large-deck amphibs. What does that do to the 

Navy’s ability to project power? Obviously we have our large-deck 

amphibs that are part of our MAGTFs, but give me perspective on 

how the Navy looks over all of that F–35B capability on the decks 

of our large-deck amphibs? 

Admiral FANTA. So it is a significant increase over the current 

Harrier fleet, even with the latest upgrade of the Harriers that 

carry air-to-air weapons. It is integrated, where a Harrier is essentially a put it up there, tell it where to go, tell it what to shoot, 

and bring it back. It is integrated into that battle force. 

It is integrated with the carriers, the large-deck amphibs, any 

cruiser, any destroyer, any small surface combatant that is out 

there. That integration now is what brings us to that next-generation fight. It is not just point, shoot, forget, bring back. 

Admiral MERCADO. I think it also gives us huge flexibility, sir, 

because our carriers cannot be everywhere. Then our large-deck 

amphibs, they have a battle rhythm and they support specific missions for the COCOMs. 

So now if you have the flexibility for a large-deck amphib, with 

the striking power that a Joint Strike Fighter brings, it gives us 

much more capability where you may not need a carrier. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Got you. I want to go back to an answer of the 

question that you gave Mr. Hunter when you talked about the 

number of large surface combatants that are now functioning in 

the newer environment of A2/AD. 

As you said, the structure now for carrier strike group is five 

large surface combatants with that strike group, but you talked 

about needing potentially more within that A2/AD environment. 

Give me your perspective on how many more, and under what type 

of situations. Would that be in all situations or only in certain situations? Give us a little more refinement because I am interested in 

the comment that you had about needing more than five in that 

as part of the carrier strike group. 

Admiral FANTA. That five is a baseline number that we use. The 

higher the fight, the more intense the fight, obviously every commander out there, Admiral Mercado just came back, would like 

more, and more coverage and more weapons to employ. It is not 

just about large surface combatants. 

And I recognize this hearing is about large surface combatants, 

but small surface combatants with a heavy antisubmarine capability, integrated into that strike group, now take away some of the 

pressure of that large surface combatant to have to do that antisubmarine mission while it is also looking for ballistic missile or air 

threats. 

So it is not just I need X number of ships that have to be fullup, large surface combatants. I will need the emphasis of those 

large surface combatants targeted against the highest threat that 

is coming at me, and then I will need to relieve some of the pressure on things like antisubmarine warfare with P–8s off the land 

bases, with littoral combat ships, with helicopters, with submarines 

in a direct support role, out there providing that screen. 

We don’t just fight with a carrier strike group and a bunch of destroyers and cruisers. We fight as a Navy, and that will allow me 
20 

to essentially do my mission with the number of ships I have, 

whether that is 5, 6, 7, 10. 

As Admiral Mercado and I were talking before we walked in 

here, if we had the choice, we would walk across the Pacific on the 

deck of a destroyer, occasionally stubbing our toes stepping down 

onto a submarine and up onto an aircraft carrier. We would love 

more but we also recognize I can only build so many, and I need 

all these ships and all these aircraft and all these submarines and 

aircraft carriers working together to get me where I need to go. 

Admiral MERCADO. Sir, I would add that that is one of the benefits of the Optimized Fleet Response Plan. While we ramp up our 

training and we have a carrier strike group with five surface combatants, and we run it through its training, what we have done in 

this construct is with the independent deployers that we have that 

are primarily trained to fill a BMD demand, what we endeavor to 

do now is to bring them in with this strike group training. 

So now you have a strike group who was deploying and you have 

independent deployers, maybe two or three DDGs [destroyers], who 

are going to be out there at the same time. It makes perfect sense 

to bring them into the training because you never know when you 

are out there where you need to re-aggregate. 

These ships are not just single-mission ships. They are not single-mission BMD ships, so that allows us actually the flexibility to 

grow if required based on the mission. 

Mr. FORBES. The gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman 

from Rhode Island is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your service and for your testimony 

today. Admiral Fanta, I think the last time I saw you I believe we 

were discussing small surface combatants. So it is good to see you 

here to talk to the other side of the coin, if you will. 

So I have noted with interest Vice Admiral Rowden’s article in 

‘‘Proceedings’’ earlier this year that talked about distributed 

lethality and hunter-killer surface action groups. It is an intriguing 

concept, I believe, and attractive in many ways, but given the mix 

of capabilities on ship classes involved, in particular with the 

dearth of defensive anti-air on the Independence and Freedom 

classes, I am curious as to how it could affect the demand signal 

for certain capabilities. 

How do you foresee this concept, if applied, affecting the demand 

for large surface combatants? Would it cause the Navy to 

reprioritize certain programs such as LCS [littoral combat ship] 

modernization efforts? 

Admiral FANTA. So there is a perception that LCS does not have 

an anti-air capability. Right now the SeaRAM [anti-ship missile defense system] and RAM [rolling airframe missile] capability I am 

installing on LCS is one of the most capable weapons in the world 

against a high-end threat. That is today. That is being installed on 

LCS today. 

There is a misconception that I have to guard LCS against air 

threats. Right now I am installing that same SeaRAM capability 

not only on LCS but my high-end destroyers that deploy to various 

parts of the world that may face those same threats, so I am leveling the force. 
21 

As you mentioned, Admiral Rowden’s article that we co-authored 

with both the Surface Forces Atlantic, us, and Admiral Rowden, 

the idea is, if it floats, it fights. I give every ship the capability of 

an offensive punch and a defensive punch. 

Now that may not be just the capability of an oiler to shoot a ballistic missile down. That is not what we are talking about. But 

every ship out there should be able to contribute to the fight, to the 

capability that it has. 

As you know, we are looking at the expansion of the LCS program to include what has now been called the frigate, and that will 

have over-the-horizon missiles. Over-the-horizon missiles knocks 

the enemy back. It makes him think about every LCS out there as 

a potential threat. 

When we put these defensive systems on LCS, it not only makes 

it survivable but it makes it lethal to the adversary. We have to 

be able to make him think about not just large surface combatants, 

not just aircraft carriers and submarines but about every surface 

ship that is afloat out there, everywhere that it can deploy from. 

Admiral MERCADO. Sir, I would say distributed lethality has 

huge potential. As we transition our mindset from purely defensive 

and we give more offensive capability to our surface combatants, 

that is just another resource for the COCOMs to use in adjusting 

their plans, you know, against any potential competitor. And once, 

as this progresses, then that comes back to my shop to do the assessments. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. Thank you for that answer. Let me 

turn to something else I spend a lot of time on, and that is directed 

energy. Can you provide us with an update on your efforts to prepare the surface fleet for the integration of directed energy weapons? What role do you envision those capabilities taking on, both 

on LCS and other ship classes, that would be covered under the 

concept of distributed lethality? 

Admiral FANTA. So just today Admiral Mercado and I were discussing one of the latest successes in that energy type weapon system. Our forward fleet operating base of Ponce, the USS Ponce out 

in the Middle East, shot down multiple drones with a directed energy weapon. Results of that just came back. We are at that level 

that we can shoot down both—not only dazzle the adversary but we 

can shoot down his surveillance assets, and we have proven that. 

We are expanding that to not only look at drones but high-end 

weapon systems, and the advances that we have. We are not there 

yet, but we are close and we are continuing to advance in that. 

Admiral MERCADO. In our assessment, sir, munitions matter. 

Numbers of munitions matter in any type of exchange. So when 

you can use directed energy or low-cost munitions then that increases your advantage. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Well, I want to again commend the Navy on being 

forward-leaning on directed energy, more so than any of the services right now. I think this is a capability that is maturing faster 

than what most people realize, and it is good to see that the Navy 

has already got something fielded and you are both—it is a test 

platform but also an active system. 
22 

I know my time has expired. I have got a bunch of other questions but I will submit those for the record. Mr. Chairman, I yield 

back. 

Mr. FORBES. We thank the gentleman for his hard work in this 

area at so many different times. 

Mr. Conaway has one follow-up question, then Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I am a CPA [certified public accountant], so trying 

to get back to an answer on my ham-handed question. So let’s hold 

100 ships constant, 9.2 months. That equates to about 27,600 days 

at sea. You divide that by 210 days, you get 131 ships. So is the 

differential for this conversation 31 ships additional to get you to 

7 months? 

Admiral FANTA. The math works, as you said. I won’t, because 

this—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, I know there are a lot of variables but on 

the back of a napkin—— 

Admiral FANTA. At 88 to 90 ships you are at 9 months, 9 months 

plus. The math works out to around 100 to 105 ships, you are at 

8 months. At around 110 or 112 ships, you are at 7 months. The 

math, you are absolutely right. It is a 0.19 ship availability and 

that is how you get to that number, sir. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I got you. So somewhere in the 25- to 30-ship 

range, you would be whole at the 7-month deployment. 

Admiral FANTA. Holding all else constant, yes, sir. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I got you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. FORBES. It is always good to have a CPA on the committee. 

[Laughter] 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have the force inventory chart which shows the next 30 years for all different categories, which I guess that is kind of what your portfolio, as you 

are looking over all the time. But as far as the requirement for advanced ballistic missile defense ships, the 40 that we have been 

talking about and the 33 that we are at today, I mean, we don’t 

have that chart. 

Maybe you said this already, but can you just sort of give us 

some projections starting in 2015? When do we hit the 40 requirement, and will we stay there or will we keep going up or, you 

know, is there going to be—— 

Admiral FANTA. I am building them now and I am modernizing 

to that capability now, so I have the first ships out there already 

of that advanced capability, of the 40. We start that as a subset. 

Roughly at the build rate of 2 new ships a year and modernization 

of approximately 2 destroyers or destroyer/cruisers a year, I will 

have hit my 40 ships at 2026. 

If you increase those numbers by any amount, the soonest I could 

have them is in 20241⁄2. So if I give you three a year, four a year, 

five a year basically, you know, I can only build two new ships a 

year right now. That is kind of constant based on my Ohio-replacement numbers, but it is the modernization that moves me up and 

down on that, whether I move left or right on the 2026 number. 

That is for the high-end capable ships. 
23 

The ships that don’t get modernized to that high end will still 

have ballistic missile capability, and now will make up not only— 

beyond that 40 will make up the additional ships up to, as has 

been mentioned, 77 or give or take that number around the world. 

Just because I have not upgraded that ship to the highest end 

capability, it does not mean it is put it off to the side. It is good 

for that defense of Europe, defense of somewhere else. That defended asset list that I have now got at sea, the advantage of mine 

is, I am portable. If you change that, if somebody points a ballistic 

missile at a different part of the world, and I have got ocean space 

in there, I can put that ship in there. 

I hit my 40 number in about 2026 based on the current build and 

modernization rate. 

Mr. FORBES. And Admiral, just to follow up on that, these are 

very important. You have emphasized how important they are. 

Why did the Navy take out five of their destroyer modernizations 

for BMD in the FYDP this year if they were so crucial? 

Admiral FANTA. Fiscal challenges. 

Mr. FORBES. So it was purely money. 

Admiral FANTA. Purely money. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Langevin I recognize for one additional question. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral, so I have heard a variety of explanations as to why the 

DDGs are less capable in the air warfare commander [AWC] role 

in a carrier strike group: lack of staffing, lack of facilities, the more 

senior and experienced leadership generally found on CGs [cruisers], deeper magazines, et cetera. 

Is it a physical or staffing limitation that drives the desire for 

CGs in the AWC role? Which concerns are able to be mitigated and 

which are not? 

Admiral FANTA. Primarily the physical capabilities of the ship, 

having two radar deck houses vice one on a destroyer is something—I can’t add another deck house to a destroyer. I cannot have 

that redundancy nor can I add another 30 missiles to a destroyer. 

That is a physical limitation. 

I could make the crew more senior, I could give them more experience, I could put more of them on to the limits of the amount of 

bunks I have on that ship. I am bunk-limited for the number of 

people I have on that. 

So from the flexibility of the experience, the training and the, to 

some extent a few more people, I could increase that to—towards 

the level of that cruiser, but I cannot physically change the dimensions of the destroyer primarily in the amount of redundancy and 

the amount of weapons it has on board, sir. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. FORBES. Gentlemen, as we mentioned to you earlier, we can’t 

thank you enough for the service you have both given to our country, but we thank you. One of the things we would like to do now 

is offer you any additional time you need for things that you think 

are important that we get on the record that maybe no one has 

asked, or any clarifications you need to make. 

Admiral Fanta, why don’t we start with you. 
24 

Admiral FANTA. Yes, sir. I recognize that there is always a tension between what we have to fight today and what we have to 

fight tomorrow. There is always risk we will miss something and 

not catch the latest development by a potential adversary. That is 

our job to blend those risks back and forth. 

There is the risk that I won’t fund that key element somewhere 

that would make the entire—change the entire face of something 

10 years down the road. We offer our best estimate on the most 

risk-mitigated way forward, given what we see as resources today 

and tomorrow. 

What we are recommending is that we blend the large surface 

combatants to a number of minimum of 88, and exceed that where 

we can over the next 15 years or so while we are building the Ohio 

replacement, to allow our Nation to recapitalize that one key element that we cannot forsake, and that is our ability to be safe 

using a nuclear deterrent. 

We recognize, as much as I am a parochial surface warfare officer, I recognize also that there is a higher need for some elements 

of the national defense. I would ask that we can blend those large 

surface combatants at 88 or above over that period of time where 

we are recapitalizing this force. 

If, sir, you can help us take that off the table and make it all 

about large surface combatants, we are all in, and from that perspective we are ready to have that conversation on how many and 

how fast. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you. 

Admiral. 

Admiral MERCADO. Sir, we talked about this a little bit here but 

my primary concern is warfighting and capability and capacity 

against that near-peer competitor, like we said. So my biggest concern is downstream is essentially Ohio replacement and the potential impact it could have on our capability and capacity if we are 

tasked to fund that entirely. 

So right now we can do, just like Admiral Fanta said in the opening, we can deal with a near-peer competitor with the numbers we 

have. My concern is the effect on that capability and capacity depending on how we address the build of Ohio replacement. 

Mr. FORBES. Well, let me just tell you guys to hopefully allay 

some of your fears. This is probably one of the most bipartisan subcommittees and maybe committees in Congress, and we are the 

best team we know how to field to do exactly what you want to do. 

We are going to continue to fight. 

We have 321 Members of Congress that agreed with you the 

other day, and I think that will continue forward, but we are going 

to fight to make sure that we accomplish those goals that you just 

laid out for us. 

With that, if we don’t have any additional questions, thank you 

both for being here, and we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:17 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JUNE 17, 2015 

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JUNE 17, 2015 

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