U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

i 

27–560 2018

[H.A.S.C. No. 115–57] 

NAVY READINESS—UNDERLYING 

PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE USS 

FITZGERALD AND USS JOHN S. McCAIN 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

MEETING JOINTLY WITH

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND 

PROJECTION FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina, Chairman 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona, Vice Chair 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TRENT KELLY, Mississippi 

MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

A. DONALD MCEACHIN, Virginia 

SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California 

ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland 

STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida 

RO KHANNA, California 

MARGARET DEAN, Professional Staff Member 

BRIAN GARRETT, Professional Staff Member 

MIKE GANCIO, Clerk 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama, Vice Chair 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

A. DONALD MCEACHIN, Virginia 

DAVID SIENICKI, Professional Staff Member 

PHIL MACNAUGHTON, Professional Staff Member 

DANIELLE STEITZ, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate from Guam, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Readiness ...................................................................................... 2 

Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative from Connecticut, Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces ........................................... 6 

Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Chairman, Subcommittee on Readiness ............................................................................................. 1 

Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia, Chairman, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces ........................................................ 4 

WITNESSES 

Moran, ADM William F., USN, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, United States 

Navy; and RADM Ronald A. Boxall, Director, Surface Warfare (N96), 

United States Navy .............................................................................................. 8 

Pendleton, John H., Director, Defense Force Structure and Readiness Issues, 

U.S. Government Accountability Office .............................................................. 8 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Moran, ADM William F., joint with RADM Ronald A. Boxall ...................... 59 

Pendleton, John H. ........................................................................................... 66 

Wilson, Hon. Joe ............................................................................................... 57 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Gallagher .................................................................................................... 97 

Mr. Hunter ........................................................................................................ 97 

Mr. Norcross ..................................................................................................... 97 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Courtney ..................................................................................................... 101 

Mr. McEachin ................................................................................................... 101 

Mr. Wilson ......................................................................................................... 101 

(1) 

NAVY READINESS—UNDERLYING PROBLEMS 

ASSOCIATED WITH THE USS FITZGERALD 

AND USS JOHN S. McCAIN 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED

SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS, MEETING

JOINTLY WITH THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND

PROJECTION FORCES, Washington, DC, Thursday, September 7, 2017. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:10 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Wilson (chairman 

of the Subcommittee on Readiness) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON READINESS 

Mr. WILSON. I call this joint hearing of the Subcommittees on 

Readiness and Seapower and Projection Forces of the House Armed 

Services Committee to order. 

We are here in honor and memory of the 7 USS Fitzgerald sailors: Shingo Douglass, Noe Hernandez, Ngoc Truong Huynh, Xavier 

Martin, Gary Rehm, Dakota Rigsby, Carlos Victor Sibayan; and the 

10 USS John S. McCain sailors: Kevin Bushell, Dustin Doyon, 

Jacob Drake, Timothy Eckels, Charles Findley, John Hoagland, III, 

Corey Ingram, Abraham Lopez, Kenneth Smith, and Logan Palmer. 

And we are very grateful that today we have Ms. Rachel Eckels, 

the mother of Petty Officer Timothy Eckels, Jr., is here with us 

today. Ms. Eckels, we send to you our deepest sympathies and profound sorrow for your loss and appreciation for your son’s service 

to our Nation. 

I want to welcome our members to today’s hearing. And I want 

to especially recognize that we have with us the committee chairman, the Honorable Mac Thornberry. Chairman Thornberry has 

been the leader of our ongoing efforts to mitigate our military readiness challenges. And I want to thank him for his leadership and 

for being here today to hear about the challenges illuminated by 

the tragic collisions in the Pacific. 

I also want to send a warm welcome to Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty from Connecticut and Congressman Rodney Davis from 

Illinois. 

I ask unanimous consent that a member who is not a member 

of the Committee on the Armed Services be allowed to participate 

in today’s hearing after all subcommittee members and then full 

committee members have had an opportunity to ask questions. Is 

there an objection? 
2 

Without objection, such members will be recognized at the appropriate time for 5 minutes. 

As we begin today’s unclassified hearing on ‘‘Navy Readiness— 

Underlying Problems Associated with the USS Fitzgerald and the 

USS John S. McCain,’’ I have no doubt that our Navy remains the 

most powerful in the world. But these recent tragic events only reinforce our committee’s concerns about the depth of readiness challenges the Navy faces. I am especially concerned about the shortfalls in the force structure, and whether the sustained operational 

tempo of a reduced 277-ship Navy may have contributed to these 

events. 

I also believe that the first responsibility of the national government is to provide for the national security for our citizens to do 

for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And that is especially true 

of our sailors, soldiers, airmen, and Marines. Therefore, it is our responsibility as members of this subcommittee to continue to better 

understand the readiness situation and underlying problems of the 

United States Navy, and then for us to chart a course which best 

assists the Department of the Navy in correcting any deficiencies 

and shortfalls. 

We now ask the senior leaders of the U.S. Navy and Government 

Accountability Office here with us today to be candid and, in your 

best judgment, advise us on the underlying problems associated 

with the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain and how to recover from these tragic events. 

This afternoon we are honored to have with us Admiral Bill 

Moran, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations; Rear Admiral Robert 

Boxall, who is the Director of Surface Warfare; and Mr. John Pendleton, the Director of the Defense Force Structure and Readiness 

Issues of the U.S. [Government] Accountability Office. 

I would like to now turn to our ranking member, Congresswoman 

Madeleine Bordallo of Guam, for any remarks she may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the Appendix on page 57.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE 

FROM GUAM, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Chairman Wittman, for agreeing to convene this timely hearing on the 

Navy readiness, particularly with regards to the 7th Fleet operations in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Chairman Wittman and I recently returned from Japan where we visited and met with Vice 

Admiral Sawyer, and saw the damage to the USS Fitzgerald firsthand. 

Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today. Admiral Moran 

and Boxall, I appreciated our meeting earlier this week, and I look 

forward to continuing our discussion. 

Mr. Pendleton, thank you as well for your time and your work 

on this subject, as it is critical in aiding our oversight mission on 

this committee. 

The recent mishaps with the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John 

S. McCain resulted not only in significant damage to the vessels, 

but also the tragic, tragic loss of life of 17 American sailors. Earlier 
3 

in the year, we saw two additional mishaps, avoidable, as I understand it, also involving surface ships assigned to the 7th Fleet. 

While investigations into the specific mishaps are still ongoing, and 

the Navy is in the midst of conducting two separate comprehensive 

reviews of surface fleet operations, I am interested to learn of the 

initial findings and the foundational challenges that need to be addressed to reverse the concerning trend that we are seeing with the 

readiness of our forward-deployed naval forces [FDNF]. 

Specifically, I am interested to hear what steps may be taken to 

ensure appropriate time is allocated for crew training and ship 

maintenance in the forward-deployed naval forces model, and how 

the chain of command will be held accountable to ensure Navy 

standards are being met. In addition to the training and the maintenance time, I will be interested to hear how the Navy is investing 

in developing and utilizing next-generation training systems to 

maximize the efficiency and the effectiveness of this time. 

This committee and the Navy’s military and civilian leadership 

owe it to our sailors to learn from these incidents and take appropriate actions to ensure the contributing factors are properly addressed. Points have been raised about how the forward-deployed 

forces model in the Pacific AOR [area of responsibility] has both 

stressed existing resources and highlighted gaps and deficiency in 

the manning of our vessels, the training of our sailors, and the 

maintenance of the fleet. Understanding that a balance needs to be 

struck and a review of posture in the region is underway, let me 

note that I believe maintaining a forward presence in the IndoAsia-Pacific is critical to our security in the region. 

Whether it be for deterrence, power projection, humanitarian assistance, bilateral and multilateral exercises, or a myriad of other 

critical missions, the Navy is able to rapidly react to contingencies 

only with forward-deployed forces. However, these missions and 

our credibility are undermined if we are not able to effectively 

manage and operate the fleet. 

The Navy’s deployment of significant capabilities overseas didn’t 

occur overnight. And the Pacific did not become a heavy traffic theater overnight. So I am concerned that the request for resources 

and the strategic prioritization of where to spend these resources 

has not properly reflected the operations, the maintenance, and the 

training needs of the fleet. 

Finally, I will conclude by stating that today’s hearing and the 

Navy’s ongoing investigations and reviews should be viewed as just 

the starting point. I hope that we will have a continuous dialogue 

between this committee and the Navy on the issues, the lessons 

learned, and specific actions that need to be taken to ensure the 

readiness of the surface fleet. 

I want to thank you, the witnesses, and I look forward to the discussion. And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Ranking Member Bordallo. 

We now will turn to the gentleman from Virginia and chairman 

of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, Congressman 

Rob Wittman, for any remarks he may have. 
4 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Chairman Wilson. 

I want to welcome Admiral Moran, Rear Admiral Boxall, and Mr. 

Pendleton, and I want to thank you all for attending our hearing 

on this tremendously important issue. I, again, want to thank 

Chairman Wilson for offering to hold this joint subcommittee hearing today. It is of essence that we get to the bottom of this in the 

interest of our Nation. 

I believe that we may arrive at some conclusions that require the 

joint efforts of both of our subcommittees, and I look forward to 

working with the gentleman from South Carolina to expeditiously 

resolve these potentially egregious underlying issues to our surface 

Navy forces. 

Before I proceed any further, I also want to recognize our special 

guest in the audience today, Ms. Rachel Eckels. Ms. Eckels’ son, 

Petty Officer Timothy Eckels, Jr., lost his life onboard the USS 

McCain just a few weeks ago. 

Ms. Eckels, thank you for being here with us today and for the 

enormous sacrifice that you and your family have made for this 

country. We are here today to ensure that the Navy—yes. 

[Applause.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. We are here today to ensure that the Navy and 

Congress learns from these tragedies and makes the necessary 

changes. I want you to be assured that your son’s life, given on behalf of this Nation, was not given in vain. 

Naval warfare is inherently dangerous. As we continue to review 

the recent collisions associated with the USS Fitzgerald and the 

USS John S. McCain, it is important to note that even in a benign 

environment, we send our sailors into precarious and oftentimes 

deadly situations. Our Nation asks much of our service members, 

and they never fail to deliver. 

I hope that today’s hearing provides some positive steps forward 

to ensure that our sailors are provided the best training and the 

best ships to sustain their daily lives, and in time of war, prevail 

over our enemy. I think we can all agree that our Nation failed 

these 17 sailors and their families with these tragic collisions. 

Last week, I led a bipartisan congressional delegation with the 

gentlelady from Guam, Ms. Bordallo, to visit the 7th Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Sawyer, and the sailors homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. I was encouraged at their zeal and the overall tenacity of the fleet, even in the face of these difficult events. Nevertheless, I look forward to turning our attention to assess whether 

there are procedural issues that may have contributed to a degraded material and training readiness of our forces in the 7th 

Fleet. 

As the committee reviews the degraded state of the 7th Fleet, 

two things are painfully obvious. The material condition and operational readiness of the ships are significantly degraded and not acceptable. Of our large surface combatants, the majority of forwarddeployed ships are not properly ready to perform their primary 

warfare areas. Overall, the negative trend lines associated with the 

operational readiness of our forward-deployed ships are deeply 
5 

troubling. These negative training trends clearly contributed to the 

lack of seamanship evident onboard the USS John McCain and the 

USS Fitzgerald. 

As to the ships themselves, the material condition of the forwarddeployed ships suffer as Navy prioritizes operational deployments 

over maintenance and modernization. This maintenance and training model places sailors at risk, and most likely contributed, in 

part, to the incidents that we have witnessed with the 7th Fleet. 

It is equally problematic that the Navy intends to increase the 

number of forward-deployed ships over the next few years with no 

increase to the maintenance capacity in Yokosuka, thereby increasing the risk to the fleet and our sailors. This increasing reliance on 

forward-deployed naval forces is a model that is not sustainable 

and needs to be significantly modified. 

We have also learned that many of the destroyers based out of 

Yokosuka are only supposed to be forward deployed for no more 

than 7 to 10 years. However, we know that the USS John S. 

McCain has been forward deployed to Japan for over 20 years. Further, the USS Fitzgerald, USS Curtis Wilbur, and USS Stethem 

have each been homeported in Yokosuka for well over 10 years. 

The Navy has proven that it cannot manage the requirements for 

forward-deployed ships in the 7th Fleet with a fleet of just 277 

ships. The ships in Yokosuka have been outside the continental 

United States for too long, and consequently, their material condition is in an unacceptable state. 

I remain convinced that one of the long-term fixes of this problem is to increase the overall force structure and build the Navy 

that our Nation needs. A larger fleet would allow the Navy to place 

less strain on each available ship, which would reduce the chance 

that any sailor is placed in a high-risk environment. 

In the short term, I fully support the need to adequately fund 

training, and most importantly, provide the fleet the time it needs 

to complete required maintenance and training. 

I think there are a number of contributing factors that should be 

explored, including Navy training models, impacts associated with 

the cannibalization of other ship parts, overall funding requirements associated with ship maintenance, and the incredibly high 

operational tempo endured by the fleet, specifically in the 7th Fleet 

area of responsibility, and also the operational failures that have 

occurred with our surface fleet. Each of these areas deserves additional assessment. 

The forward-deployed Navy model is ripe with risk, and this risk 

will increase in the future. The Navy needs to offer an alternative 

model that meets the Nation’s need at reduced risk to our sailors. 

I thank Chairman Wilson for working with the Seapower and 

Projection Forces Subcommittee on this important issue, and I 

yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Chairman Rob Wittman. 

And now for the gentleman from Connecticut and ranking member of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, Congressman Joe Courtney, for his remarks. 
6 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOE COURTNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM CONNECTICUT, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to Admiral Moran, Rear Admiral Boxall, and Mr. Pendleton for your testimony today. And I would also like to recognize Ms. Eckels for 

being here today and putting a human face on the subject that we 

are talking about here today, and really representing the other 

families. That is an important contribution that is being made here 

today. 

So thank you, Ms. Eckels. 

The circumstances that bring us to today’s hearing are painful 

and tragic. As our lead witness today, Admiral Moran, pointed out 

in his order to the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command dated August 24, 

2017, in the span of 65 days, 17 sailors were lost in ship collisions 

and accidents on naval vessels. These were not, as he pointed out, 

limited occurrences, but part of a disturbing trend of mishaps in 

the Asia-Pacific region that, since January, has involved the USS 

Antietam, the USS Lake Champlain, the USS Fitzgerald, and the 

McCain. To put that in perspective, these heartbreaking casualties 

are more than the number of service members that we have lost 

in the Afghanistan war zone in 2017. 

Two of those sailors are from my State of Connecticut: sonar 

technician second class Ngoc Truong Huynh of Watertown, Connecticut—and the Congressman from that community, Congresswoman Esty, is with us here today—and electronics technician second class, Dustin Doyon, from Suffield, Connecticut, in the northwestern portion of my district was lost onboard the USS John S. 

McCain. Their families and the entire State of Connecticut are 

mourning the loss of these two patriots, and are intensely watching 

the response of the Navy and Congress to fix this disturbing trend. 

Several reviews by the Navy and the Secretary of the Navy are 

underway right now to dig deep into this disturbing trend. I applaud those efforts, and I know I think I speak for all my colleagues today, that we expect the Navy to be fully transparent with 

our panels as these efforts move forward and that we will convene 

again as many times as needed to provide support to fix this problem. 

Indeed, article I, section 8, clause 13 of the U.S. Constitution is 

very clear. It is Congress’s duty to, quote, ‘‘provide and maintain 

a Navy,’’ which certainly means a Navy that is well-equipped, welltrained, and adequately manned. 

What does seem to be clear at this early stage is these incidents 

are a glaring manifestation of the sharply increased demand being 

placed on our forward-deployed Navy vessels, particularly in the 

Asia-Pacific region, and the declining readiness of these forces. We 

ask these forward-deployed ships to do difficult work, which is 

oftentimes not well understood by the public at large. 

For instance, prior to her collision, the USS McCain conducted 

a highly visible freedom of navigation operation in the South China 

Sea. Likewise, the Fitzgerald was a pivotal player in providing 

needed presence in response to Kim Jong-un’s recent threats and 

missile tests. Simply put, these are not the kinds of ships and 

crews that we can afford to lose to preventable mishaps. 
7 

As my colleague Mr. Wittman correctly pointed out, one obvious 

response to this high operational tempo is to grow our fleet and 

shorten the backlog of repair and maintenance for the existing fleet 

to take the pressure off the heel-to-toe operations of our forwarddeployed ships in places like Yokosuka, Japan, and Rota, Spain. 

These two committees, I would note, have pushed more aggressively on a bipartisan basis to add funding to ship construction and 

readiness than any other entity in the Congress. This year’s House 

NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] plussed up these accounts significantly above the White House’s budget that was submitted last May, and passed with the biggest bipartisan vote since 

2008. We will have more work to do to complete the 2018 process, 

and I am sure this hearing will increase the members’ determination to get the best outcome possible. 

But today is not just about resources. It is also about whether 

Navy systems and policies need to be realigned to improve readiness. Unfortunately, concerns about systems and policies are not 

new. As the GAO [Government Accountability Office] has repeatedly reported over the last several years, and as our witness today 

will discuss, a growing number of our forward-deployed vessels are 

operating without the certifications expected of a ship heading out 

to deployment. Unfortunately, this trend has worsened since the 

last report in 2015, and this needs to be corrected. 

Similarly, in 2010, the Navy conducted a review by Vice Admiral 

Phillip Balisle, which outlines shortfalls and concerns about surface 

force readiness that are strikingly relevant today in looking at 

these incidences in the larger state of Navy fleet readiness. One of 

his priority recommendations includes clarifying who in the chain 

of command specifically has the ultimate say in whether a ship is 

manned, trained, and equipped to the level needed to safely do 

their job before being sent out on deployment. 

To put it another way, the certification process which covers key 

competencies in seamanship, surface warfare, ballistic missile defense, to name just a few, need to be reviewed and approved by an 

accountable decisionmaker. Unfortunately, this recommendation 

raised by Vice Admiral Balisle has not been addressed in the 7 

years since his report came out. 

We expect a lot from the Navy, and with good reason. Our sailors 

are the best in the world. And the sight of a U.S. Navy vessel in 

a foreign port or operating in international waters sends a powerful 

message of protection for a rules-based order in the maritime domain. And those sailors do what they need to do to keep the peace 

and the sea-lanes of the world’s great oceans free and open. In return, our sailors and families should expect that their leaders, who 

send them out to sea, have done all they can to provide the tools, 

resources, and training they need to conduct their work safely and 

return safely. 

I hope today’s hearing will focus on the steps that the Navy will 

take to fulfill that expectation and what it needs from us here in 

the Congress to get it done. 

Thank you. I yield back my time. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Ranking Member Joe Courtney. 

Admiral Moran, we now turn to you for your opening remarks. 
8 

STATEMENT OF ADM WILLIAM F. MORAN, USN, VICE CHIEF OF 

NAVAL OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES NAVY; AND RADM 

RONALD A. BOXALL, DIRECTOR, SURFACE WARFARE (N96), 

UNITED STATES NAVY 

Admiral MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be short. 

I want to be very clear that no matter the circumstances, the operating environment, or how strained our force might be, we should 

not and cannot have collisions at sea. Fundamental professional 

seamanship is the foundation for safe operations around the fleet. 

In all of the marvelous technology, the magnificent hardware that 

we put together on these ships, and the power of our weapons systems are meaningless without well-trained, skilled, patriotic, and 

experienced sailors, who are well led. 

You have my promise that we will get to the bottom of these mishaps. We will leave no stone unturned. We will be accountable to 

you, to our sailors, and to the American public. Like you, our Navy 

stands with Ms. Rachel Eckels and all of our Navy families with 

hearts broken, but determined to investigate thoroughly all the 

facts to get at the root causes, to address contributing factors, and 

to learn so that we will become a better Navy at the end of this. 

We have an absolute responsibility to keep sailors safe from harm 

in peacetime, even as they prepare for war. 

Mr. Chairman, although we are 20 feet apart, there is no gap between what we need to do from here on out. Admiral Boxall and 

I look forward to your questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of Admiral Moran and Admiral 

Boxall can be found in the Appendix on page 59.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Admiral. 

We now turn to Mr. John Pendleton from the Government Accountability Office for your opening comments. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN H. PENDLETON, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE 

FORCE STRUCTURE AND READINESS ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. PENDLETON. Thank you, Chairman Wilson, Chairman Wittman, Ranking Members Bordallo and Mr. Courtney, Chairman 

Thornberry. Thank you very much for having me here today to 

summarize GAO’s past work on Navy readiness. 

Unfortunately, grim circumstances do bring us together. Mr. 

Chairman, I don’t know what specifically caused the accidents, but 

I do know the Navy is caught between an unrelenting operational 

demand and a limited supply of ships. 

The Navy has been warning for some time that they have been 

keeping a pace that is unsustainable. Our work has confirmed the 

difficulties and our reports have shown it. However, our body of 

work has also spotlighted risk associated with the way the Navy 

is managing the demands on it. Some of these risks present significant challenges in the building blocks of readiness, training and 

manning, and maintenance. 

Just over 2 years ago, we published a report warning about the 

increased reliance of overseas basing of ships. In that report, we 

found that ships based in Japan did not have dedicated training 

periods like U.S.-based ships. Their aggressive deployment sched-
9 

ule gave the Navy more presence, it is true, but it came at cost, 

including detrimental effects on ship readiness. 

In fact, we were told that the overseas-based ships were so busy 

that they had to train on the margins, a term I had not heard before. And it was explained to me that meant that they had to 

squeeze training in when they could. Given the concerns, we recommended that the Navy carefully analyze the risks that were 

mounting, especially given the plan to increase overseas basing in 

the future to meet the demands. 

I think it is important to note that the Department of Defense, 

on behalf of the Navy, wrote the response to our report, and they 

concurred with the report and our recommendation, for the most 

part, and I think their response is instructive. And I am going to 

read a short passage, please. 

We assess the Navy is well aware of risk associated with increased reliance on overseas homeporting. The decision to accept 

these risks was ultimately based on the operational decision to provide increased presence to meet combatant commander requirements. 

Mr. Chairman, I fear this was a bad gamble, in retrospect. In 

preparing for this hearing, we followed up on that work and 

learned a couple of things that concerned us. 

First, the Navy had told us that they planned to implement a deployment schedule for the overseas ships that will allow dedicated 

training. As of the writing of—as of this hearing, they have not yet 

done that. They have a notional idea, but it has not yet been implemented. 

The second thing we learned was that training certifications— 

this is the way the Navy periodically determines that its crews are 

proficient in everything from seamanship, driving the ship, to warfare areas—were being allowed to expire at, frankly, an alarming 

rate. In 2015, looking just at the cruisers and destroyers, all of the 

certification areas, about 7 percent of those were expired. By late 

June of this year, that number was up to 37 percent expired, a 

more than fivefold increase. 

Manning has been a persistent challenge for the Navy. The Navy 

had a study in 2014 that indicated that sailors, on average, were 

working well over 108 hours a week. The Navy concluded at that 

time that this was unsustainable and could contribute to a poor 

safety culture. Maintenance is also taking longer and costing more. 

Due to the pace of operation, ship deployments have often been delayed. Although, Admiral Moran told me before the hearing that, 

you know, been keeping deployments shorter lately. But deployments have been extended, and then the ships have more problems 

when you bring them in. And the shipyards have trouble keeping 

pace for a number of reasons, which I think many of you are aware 

of. 

At this point, the lost operational days because of the maintenance delays number in the thousands. And having two destroyers 

out of service due to the recent mishaps is not going to help rebuild 

readiness. In fact, I think the Navy is treading water at this point 

in terms of readiness rebuilding. 

Mr. Chairman, GAO has made 11 practical recommendations to 

the Department of Defense to help guide the Navy and all the serv-
10 

ices toward improved readiness. The DOD [Department of Defense] 

and the Navy have concurred with our recommendations generally, 

but today have partially implemented only one. Several of the recommendations are crafted on—excuse me—are focused on crafting 

a comprehensive readiness rebuilding plan that balances resources 

with demands and is transparent about what it will cost and how 

long it will take. 

We have also made recommendations specific to the Navy that 

are directly relevant to today’s conversations, particularly in the 

areas of analyzing the risk associated with overseas basing and reassessing the workload that sailors actually face, and using that to 

decide how many people to put on a crew. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I should acknowledge that we did all 

of this work because this committee requested that we do so. 

Thank you for your foresight, and we are honored to assist the 

committee in its oversight going forward. Thank you very much. I 

am happy to take any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pendleton can be found in the 

Appendix on page 66.] 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. And, Mr. Pendleton, we all 

appreciate the Government Accountability Office for your independent professionalism. As particularly important to me personally, I 

have a son serving in the U.S. Navy, and your recommendations 

are so important for the health and safety and protection of the 

American people. 

Additionally, I particularly appreciate that a report was presented as a report to congressional addressees on June 14, which 

highlighted the issues of readiness just 4 days before the Fitzgerald 

incident. And so your efforts just could not—and your organization’s efforts could not be more timely, and they are greatly appreciated by all of us. 

The GAO statement today that you have provided indicates that 

the expired training certification as provided by the afloat training 

group for cruisers and destroyers homeported in Japan had increased fivefold since the 2015 report, from 7 percent expired to 37 

percent expired in June of this year. Again, the month of the incident. 

Mr. Pendleton, can you explain the sharp trend of the training 

certifications since your report? What are the GAO’s observations 

in what is happening with our forward-deployed forces? 

Mr. PENDLETON. Sir, we updated that information in preparation 

for this hearing, so we have not been back out to talk to the fleet 

about them. We did gather that information when we did the work 

a couple of years ago, and we asked for it to be updated, and the 

Navy provided it. 

And when we looked at it, we saw that, again, if you imagine all 

of the 11 ships based in Japan, 3 cruisers and 8 destroyers, and 

then 21 or -2 certification areas. When you look at—the ones that 

were red that they were expired, it had grown to 37 percent. Of all 

those little blocks, if you imagine it being red. 

Another thing that concerned us is there were specific areas that 

were even higher than 37 percent, and one of those was seamanship. Eight of the eleven ships had expired certifications for sea-
11 

manship as of late June, and there were some other areas as well 

that were sharply lower than you would hope to see. 

Mr. WILSON. And, again, I want to commend you, the analysis 

that you did is going to be so helpful to us, and then the actions 

needed to address the mission challenges are real world. And it is 

just, again, reassuring, as a Member of Congress, but as a parent. 

Thank you for what you are doing. 

Mr. PENDLETON. Mr. Wilson, if I may, the report that you held 

up is a compilation report and it is designed to identify what we 

believe is the major challenges facing the Department of Defense. 

I think what is significant about it is we lead with readiness rebuilding, that really we think is one of the priority areas the Department needs to focus on. 

Mr. WILSON. And you also provided extraordinary insight in regard to health care being provided to our military personnel. I urge 

all members of both subcommittees and the full committee to get 

a copy and—and it is really very helpful. 

Mr. PENDLETON. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. Admiral Moran, obviously, the trend is so significant, and I appreciate your heartfelt statement earlier. 

Can you help the subcommittees better understand the issues? I 

am trying to figure out how most—our most forward-deployed ships 

are apparently not being held to the same standards as the rest of 

the fleet. Who certifies the ships homeported in Japan? 

Admiral MORAN. Mr. Chairman, the certification is done locally 

by the operational commanders in Japan. So it starts with the commanding officer of the ship that makes a request for waivers or to 

extend their certification. It goes to his direct—in the chain of command, there is a DESRON [destroyer squadron] commander, and 

that is worked out then above his level with a one-star, two-star 

commander of the task force in Japan as well as the 7th Fleet commander ultimately makes that decision. 

Mr. WILSON. And—— 

Admiral MORAN. So if I could, there—when someone is expiring 

on a certification, they are required to put a risk mitigation plan 

in place and request the waiver. And once the risk mitigation plan 

is approved in the chain of command, then they are allowed to operate along those certifications. So while the certifications are expired, there is a risk mitigation plan for each one of them. 

But to your point, and to the point that the GAO has thoughtfully put out here, is the trend of the number that we are asking 

for waivers is increasing at an alarming rate, one in which ought 

to give us all pause for just how hard we are driving the crews in 

7th Fleet. Changing schedules, delayed maintenance, and additional missions that they have been asked to perform, are making 

it more difficult to get the ship and the command, which is called 

the afloat training group in Japan in WESTPAC [Western Pacific], 

onboard the ship to do the certification at the right time before it 

expires. It is not an indication necessarily that they are not qualified to do those missions or those certifications. 

Mr. WILSON. And what is the role of the afloat training group 

and what certifications? 

Admiral MORAN. I will let Admiral Boxall address it. He has got 

direct comms [communications] with that group. 
12 

Admiral BOXALL. Sir, the afloat training group is how we—they 

are the senior sailors, usually at the senior enlisted level, who go 

out and are experts in each area of the specialties, the 21, 22 mission areas that the GAO mentioned. 

Those sailors that do that work for us generally need the time 

to go do that. And so these sailors will go out and they will observe 

operations. There is a series. And for each of one of those certifications, you know, zero might be making sure the training is there. 

Step one might be to make sure that the team knows how to do 

the basic drill sets to an assessment in a phase 4. So if they do not 

meet all four of those phases, they do not get the certification. 

Mr. WILSON. And what would be their professional skills and 

training? 

Admiral BOXALL. So they are usually assigned to ATG, afloat 

training group, only after demonstrated fleet performance. So these 

are our best of our sailors, we look throughout the fleet, that are— 

so one may be a boatswain’s mate for deck evolutions, for example, 

or a quartermaster for navigation, or an electrician for engineering, 

those types of sailors. 

Mr. WILSON. And these are extraordinarily important people. 

And are they fully staffed to perform their duties? 

Admiral BOXALL. The answer is they are not fully staffed to 

their—so in Yokosuka, for example, there are two afloat training 

group areas. One is in Sasebo, Japan, and one is in Yokosuka. The 

two together work together to try to help ships from both homeports meet their qualifications. 

We have put a lot of money into buying the manpower or buying 

the people we need to get those billets. We have increased from 120 

up to 180. Unfortunately, they are only manned not quite to that 

level. Actually, they are missing about 30 to 40 folks on that team 

due to the fact that it takes many years to generate an E–7 or an 

E–8, that senior enlisted specialist, and the priority goes to putting 

those specialists first on ships and then out to the ATGs. 

Mr. WILSON. And as I understand it, they have 22 areas of certification. And is there, again, sufficient personnel with skills to 

really determine the level of certification? 

Admiral BOXALL. So in a perfect planning world, the answer is 

we would. If we had all the people we expected and we had the 

time to do it, then we probably would. But the reality is that we 

are seeing that, because of these compressed timelines, they have 

to train in smaller and smaller periods, meaning we have to send 

those evaluators to different places to catch up with the ship. That 

is a very inefficient model, and it further exacerbates a challenging 

certification process. 

Mr. WILSON. And in line with that, is it normal to have a single 

mission area of certification waived prior to deployment? 

Admiral BOXALL. So we use the term—we create this risk area 

mitigation plan. Before a certification goes out of periodicity, because of all these challenges they have—the time to do it, sometimes there is a specific piece of equipment, sometimes it is an exercise that can’t get done, and so those ramps have to be put in 

place for every certification. They are put in place by the commanding officer of the ship through their commander, back to the 
13 

surface force commander, and then that is reviewed as the operational chain of command. 

Mr. WILSON. And is this the same standard that is used in Norfolk? 

Admiral BOXALL. The difference in Norfolk is that ships coming 

from the mainland United States from the east and west coast, 

they work up together with an aircraft carrier, and the answer is 

no. They work a plan that gives a 36-month period to get those 

qualifications done, but it is a very regimented piece. All the ships 

come out about the same time. They go into a training period for 

about 6 months: basic, intermediate, and advanced. And then they 

work up together, deploy, through the deployment, come back, and 

are prepared to surge, if needed, and then they start the cycle 

again. That is the Optimized Fleet Replacement Plan. 

Mr. WILSON. And with the number of waivers being provided, 

say, per ship, when does it become dangerous for personnel to be 

serving on that particular ship? 

Admiral BOXALL. Well, sir, I think that is exactly one of the 

things that we are going to look very closely at in the comprehensive review, because we do have different models. Those ships forward that are in Yokosuka are closer to the operational areas that 

we deploy ships to. And so the trade-off of where is the operational 

risk too great is exactly something that the fleet commander’s interest is focused on today, and we are looking at the comprehensive 

review to make a permanent process change. 

Mr. WILSON. And who in the chain of—Navy chain of command 

grants the waivers? 

Admiral BOXALL. So in the chain of command for a risk area 

mitigation plan is—all those plans are approved by the surface 

force commander. They are the man, train, equip person at Commander Naval Surface Forces, and they review all those to ensure 

that they can do everything they can to make that ship meet what 

it can do given the constraints of time or exercise or the equipment 

that is not available to help them achieve the certification. 

Mr. WILSON. And then, finally, was the Navy leadership aware 

of so many forward-deployed ships’ certifications being waived? 

Admiral BOXALL. Sir, I think that is something that the comprehensive review will look at. Again, I defer to the fleet on this 

one because—and Admiral Davidson will certainly get to this as 

the United States Fleet Forces commander. But I think, clearly, 

this is an area that we have to get to the bottom of. Where is the 

right amount of risk given our over-focus on trying to achieve the 

mission? 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. 

And I now will refer to the ranking member, Madeleine Bordallo 

of Guam. And of course, the American people are so appreciative 

of the very patriotic, dedicated citizens of that very vital American 

territory. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to take 

this opportunity to thank the military for providing the great security that they did for Guam during this exchange with North 

Korea. So thank you very much. 

It definitely is apparent that training and certification issues 

have been building for years within the forward-deployed fleet. 
14 

Now, I have this question for both Admiral Moran and Boxall. 

I am concerned that there is a critical deficiency in the feedback 

loop. Are ship captains voicing their concerns regarding the readiness of their crews and the condition of their ships? If they are 

voicing those concerns, who is assuming that risk? And do you feel 

they have an adequate understanding of the risks they are assuming and how that impacts the sailors that are forward deployed? I 

will start with you, Admiral Moran. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, ma’am. It is a great question. First of all, 

it is the obligation of any commanding officer [CO] to voice concerns, if they have them, with respect to the responsibility that 

they have, the obligation that they have to protect the safety and 

well-being of their crew. It is not unusual at all for a CO to express 

their concerns when there are manning issues or training issues, 

resourcing issues, and those conversations happen on the waterfront all the time. 

What I think has happened here, though, to I think Chairman 

Wittman’s point, is we have allowed our standards of the numbers 

of certifications to grow—our standards to drop as the number of 

certification waivers have grown. While not against the rules, they 

are below the standard that we should accept. 

And to Admiral Boxall’s point earlier, these are the kinds of 

things that the comprehensive review that Admiral Davidson is 

going to undertake to look at is where is the acceptable standard 

for the number of certifications? And then how are those concerns 

by commanding officers being transmitted up the chain of command and what are they doing in response? 

Once the commander’s senior approves the waiver, they are in a 

sense accepting that risk. They are allowing the ship to move with 

a greater number of waivers and a number of expired certifications. 

And so the responsibility of our fleet commanders and our commanders in the operational environment is to wake up every day, 

assess the environment and assess the risk that they are taking 

from unit to unit across the waterfront. And so I think we have got 

a lot of learning to do on that front to your very good question. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, thank you, Admiral. I think what I really 

would like to know, have these captains or commanders ever come 

to you with risks? Is there a list somewhere? Or have they never 

said anything? That is what I would like to know. 

Admiral MORAN. Well, are you talking specifically Fitzgerald and 

McCain? 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes. So that is part of the investigation—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. Or any ship for that matter, but especially—so 

you have never received any complaints or—— 

Admiral MORAN. At our level, we would not necessarily receive 

direct from the commanding officer. There is a chain of command 

that runs through the operational chain to the surface force commander, and then it would come to us if it were something that 

they needed additional resourcing that they couldn’t provide for 

themselves. 

Ms. BORDALLO. I understand the protocol, you know, that the 

commander should do this. But I just wonder, are they doing it or 

are they just avoiding some of these things? 
15 

Admiral MORAN. I think as Admiral Boxall described, they are 

following the process that requires the chain of command to get involved in the risk mitigation process and the steps to mitigate any 

certification that is about to expire. So they are all taking on that 

risk by mitigating it with very specific steps that are outlined that 

they have to follow through on. 

Ms. BORDALLO. So, Admiral Boxall, have you—do you have a list 

of some of these risks? 

Admiral BOXALL. I can give you an example of the type of—the 

mitigations that are in place. For example, as I described to Chairman Wilson, the individual steps that it takes, they may have four 

steps or five steps in a process of one particular qual [qualification]. 

They may have—for example, they may need to go out, and for a 

seamanship, they have achieved, you know, the basic, the second 

part where they have—and they get to the point where they meet 

something, they didn’t have an opportunity to moor to a buoy, for 

example. That becomes a mitigation so that they do not certify, but 

they say, well, the risk of that ship going and doing a moor to buoy 

for what I want them to do probably isn’t an issue, and therefore, 

that has been addressed operationally by the commander. 

Now, to your question whether or not the COs will tell us 

when—we expect that, we train them to do that. We go through a 

lot of workups when our command qualifications almost exclusively 

puts COs in a bad position where we have to ensure that they will 

tell leadership when they don’t feel they can meet the demand. 

That is what we train them to do. 

Now, the question, if they are going to go be doing an operational 

mission, you know, our sailors are kind of conflicted because they 

want to do that mission. And so the question is, is do they feel it, 

do they want to do that mission, do they feel—that is something 

I think the comprehensive review is going to get to. Do we have 

systems in place that accurately measure the risk independently, 

and the operational fleet commander ensures that due diligence 

has been done to the level of risk for the level of operation that 

they will be doing. And that is what I think we are getting to. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. I feel that, you know, if maintenance 

and training and all of this is lacking, the commanders, the captains of these ships, should be, you know, letting everyone know 

about it, and certainly maybe we wouldn’t be in this fix. 

The other question I have is, Admiral Moran, the need to grow 

the size of the fleet has often been a point raised when we talk 

about the Navy readiness. However, the Navy’s proposal to grow to 

355 ships would take decades to be realized, which means we have 

to make do with the size of the fleet that we have in the near term. 

With that in mind, what near- and mid-term measures are being 

considered with respect to how we crew, train, and maintain the 

ships that we have today in order to rebuild and sustain readiness? 

How will the Navy prioritize missions or, in some cases, turn down 

missions so we don’t put sailors at risk by running the fleet ragged 

without being properly trained and maintained? 

Admiral MORAN. Yes. It is—a key question for Admiral Davidson’s team is to assess how much operational tempo in places like 

Japan, Rota, Bahrain, where we have forward-deployed forces is— 

reaches a point where we can’t do the maintenance and the train-
16 

ing and have the appropriate amount of time left to do the operations. 

On forward-deployed forces like in Japan, the training is done 

while you are at sea operating on deployment, for the most part. 

There is not dedicated time, as the GAO pointed out, like we have 

back here in CONUS [continental United States]. So that is an 

issue that both chairmen have raised as a serious point that we 

have to study to make sure that when we build the model for how 

we maintain and operate ships in the forward-deployed naval 

forces, we have sufficient time to do those things. 

The size of the force, of course, as I testified last February and 

March, does matter. But wholeness of the force matters just as 

much, because you can have a large force that is not whole and you 

are going to run into these problems. If maintenance takes longer, 

it disrupts the schedule. If the schedule is disrupted, it disrupts the 

ability to train. If the training is disrupted, you end up in these 

places you have described with expired certifications and so on and 

so forth. So we do have to look at this model from the ground up. 

But we also recognize, part of the reason why we have FDNF 

forces is because we get four times the presence with those forces 

than we would if we had them all in CONUS. So, for example, the 

fact that we have got one carrier in Yokosuka, it actually gives us 

an equal—roughly equal to 16 carriers when we only operate 10. 

That is a big difference. Having four destroyers in Rota, Spain, operating off of BMD [ballistic missile defense] stations was the principal reason we wanted to put those forces forward was to get more 

out of those ships and not have to rotate as many from CONUS to 

do those missions. 

So all of these things culminate with this notion that we aren’t 

big enough to do everything we are being tasked to do. And our culture is we are going to get it done because that is what the Navy 

is all about. And sometimes our culture works against us. And I 

think we ask the sailors to do an awful lot, to your earlier point, 

and perhaps we have asked them to do too much, and that is what 

the comprehensive review will look at. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

I have just one quick final question for any one of you who want 

to answer. Would you say that sequestration might have had something to do with the lack of maintenance and the training and so 

forth, funding not being there? 

Admiral MORAN. I am on record, ma’am, that that is absolutely 

the case. That along with nine consecutive continuing resolutions, 

and we are about to hit another one. Those budget uncertainties 

drive uncertainty into schedules, drive uncertainty into maintenance. Our private yards, our public yards, this is an issue across 

the board. So the most useful thing we could have out of Congress 

right now in terms of addressing a lot of our readiness concerns is 

stability in the budget. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. And I am looking forward to the report. And I do want to say, I had a nice conversation with Rachel 

before the hearing today. She is one brave woman. 

Thank you, Rachel, for being here with us. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Ranking Member Bordallo. 
17 

We now proceed to Chairman Rob Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Chairman Wilson. Admiral Moran, 

Rear Admiral Boxall, Mr. Pendleton, thank you for coming before 

us today. Thanks for your service, and thank you for your candor 

and frankness. It is critical for us to get to the bottom of this. 

Mr. Pendleton, I want to begin with you. In terms of the material 

and training readiness of our ships homeported in Japan versus 

ships homeported in the United States, is there a difference in levels of readiness? And which group of ships are more ready than the 

other? 

Mr. PENDLETON. The information that we have in the 2015 report that we weren’t able to update shows trends, and the Navy 

calls them equipment casualties, it is broken stuff, had basically 

been upward for both U.S.-based and overseas-based ships. The 

overseas-based ships casualty reports were—and, again, that is 

equipment—was more steeply upward. But we weren’t able to update that trend line since then. So I can’t answer it since 2014 

when our data ended. 

Mr. WITTMAN. But the recent data you have, lower state of readiness for forward-deployed naval forces versus those in the United 

States? 

Mr. PENDLETON. We saw more—a more steep increase in breakdowns for the overseas-based ships. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Admiral Moran, do you agree with GAO’s assessment? 

Admiral MORAN. I do, Mr. Chairman. There is a—I think this 

speaks to what you raised earlier in terms of the—if we are not rotating those ships back, the older they get, the more care they are 

going to need. And that might be an indication, and it is part of 

what we are looking at in the comprehensive review, is these extended periods at FDNF having a detrimental effect and impact on 

their material condition the longer they go. And is the SRF [ship 

repair facility], the ships force—the maintenance force in Japan, 

have enough capacity to deal with the increased numbers we have 

put in FDNF Japan in the last 3 years. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Following up on that, in order to maintain overseas presence, will the Navy increase or decrease forward-deployed 

forces in Japan and elsewhere? 

Admiral MORAN. Well, I think we have all taken a pause here, 

for all the right reasons, to figure out whether our current plan is 

the right plan. And we are looking forward to Admiral Davidson’s 

report in 60 days to let us know whether we need to make adjustments to that plan. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Was the plan prior to this to increase or decrease 

that in the future? 

Admiral MORAN. The current plan—we just completed the third 

DDG [guided-missile destroyer] crew DASH [drone anti-submarine 

helicopter] ship in Japan that was added to that force. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. 

Admiral MORAN. And so I am not aware of additional ones this 

year or next year. 

Admiral BOXALL. The strategic laydown plan as we bring in LCS 

[littoral combat ship] in station and rotate them forward will increase the presence. But, again, that is with the existing strategic 
18 

laydown plan. We are going to look at that, I am sure, as part of 

this review. Certainly, how we do that is, you know, a double-edged 

sword. We know it is harder, more expensive to maintain, but we 

need ships forward to be there, given especially the number of 

ships we have. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Gotcha. Very good. 

Mr. Pendleton, from a financial perspective, is it more cost effective to homeport ships to the United States or to forward deploy 

those ships? 

Mr. PENDLETON. That is a hard question to answer. I mean, if 

you look at it on the margin, it is marginally a little more expensive to have ships overseas. We did analysis to show that. I would 

caution against the rule of thumb, not to differ with Admiral 

Moran, because I have heard this many times about you get four 

times more presence. That is true from a four-structure standpoint, 

right? I mean, one ship can cover down on what four ships would 

do. But that is mainly because of the way they are deployed. 

So, essentially, the U.S. based—the OFRP model, the Optimized 

Fleet Response Plan model has them going out 7 months out of 

every 36. FDNF ships are scheduled to go out 16 months out of 

every 24. There is a graph in our report that describes this. I 

mean, it is difficult to quantify the impact of that, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Pendleton. 

Admiral Moran, do you agree that if we had more ships in our 

Navy fleet, we could spread the workload more evenly, we wouldn’t 

be pushed up against the demands and the stresses that happen 

when you have ships forward deployed for more than the planned 

number of years, extended maintenance periods, truncated training 

periods? Give me your perspective about how the number of ships 

we have today—and let me put it in perspective. 

If you go back to the 1980s when we had a Navy of 600 ships, 

we had 100 ships forward deployed. Today, we have 277 ships. We 

have 100 ships forward deployed. Give me your perspective about 

the size of the fleet in relation to where we are today with forwarddeployed naval forces. 

Admiral MORAN. Well, you just gave the answer for me, Mr. 

Chairman. I mean, that math is pretty hard to argue with. And 

while Mr. Pendleton and I have had this discussion, you can argue 

over the factors, you know, it is four times or three times, but the 

fact is, even with that, those ships are a lot closer to where we 

might have to fight by being there. And I think that is a value you 

can’t put a times anything on. It is clearly—and the message that 

sends to our allies and partners in the region is vitally important. 

That said, I think you made the point about if we are still operating 100 ships deployed today at a force that is 40 plus percent 

smaller than it was in the 1980s, it is—actually, the 1980s and 

1990s, it is going to be a bigger stressor on that force. So, yes, I 

agree with you. 

Mr. PENDLETON. Mr. Wittman, may I add one thing? 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yes, please, please. 

Mr. PENDLETON. The admiral makes a great point. And it is important to emphasize that the Navy doesn’t create the demands, 

the Navy responds to demands. They are being asked by the com-
19 

bat commanders and the Department of Defense to fulfill those demands. So it is important to make that distinction. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Gotcha. Very good. 

Rear Admiral Boxall, let me ask this. In order to get ships ready 

today to deploy, you spoke a little bit earlier about what they do 

for material readiness. And what we see is them going to other 

ships, cannibalizing parts in order to get ships ready to maintain 

that material readiness. Is cannibalization a systemic problem with 

surface ships? And is the root cause sufficient money to procure 

new parts or stocks of parts to make sure you have them on hand 

to keep up with routine maintenance or expected problems with 

wearing of parts and wearing of systems? 

Admiral BOXALL. Sir, the cannibalization of parts off ships is 

something we try to avoid as much as possible. But there is a lot 

of reasons why we do it. Sometimes it is the availability of the 

part. Sometimes it is the—even when we have the money to buy 

the parts is—you know, we have had a lot of money restored in the 

last year, especially the 2017 RAA [request for additional appropriations]—but it takes time to go buy that part. Some of these are 

made by very unique vendors, so there is some pent-up readiness, 

spare parts, sparing challenges out there, contracting time to do 

those things. So we are seeing some cannibalization increases. 

We are also seeing an increase in the C2, C3 CASREPs [casualty 

reports]. That to everyone is kind of—a C2 is where it becomes 

kind of an attention getter for an operational commander. C3 

means there is a major issue on that ship we got to get to very 

quickly. There is kind of two reasons for that. One is the actual 

material readiness is degrading and we need to bring it to the leader’s attention. The other reason is is that in places where we are 

having a difficult time getting work done to repair these CASREPs 

in the yards because of the demand, the commanders are trying to 

boost the priority of their jobs to get them in because it is the best 

way they know how. That is a signal back to us also that says, we 

got to get something right and get—not just because we want the 

reporting to be accurate. We don’t want commanding officers— 

again, we challenge them with telling us when things are wrong, 

and when they do, they send the flare, and we expect them to do 

that. But if they are doing it because it is the only way they can 

get the response, then that is another issue. And this goes to the 

demand that we have specifically in SRF, ships repair facility, in 

Yokosuka for is probably the more significant example. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Chairman Wittman. 

We now proceed to Ranking Member Joe Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Admiral Moran, 

I guess—one thing I think might he helpful, for some of us anyway, 

just sort of walk through what the investigative process and reporting process is going to look like over the next, you know, 60 to 90 

to 120 days in terms of the various efforts that are underway. 

Admiral MORAN. So immediately after both collisions, any mishap, we stand up an investigative team. In the case of these two 

collisions, in Japan, we put a dual-purpose investigation together. 

That includes the normal safety investigation and the JAGMAN 

[Judge Advocate General Manual] investigation. Those are privi-
20 

leged investigations. We do not share that information publically so 

we can protect folks from being very open with us and giving us 

as much information as possible to determine the root cause. 

So those investigations are stood up immediately by the convening authority. The convening authority for Fitzgerald was the commander of 7th Fleet. The convening authority for McCain was Admiral Swift because of the other investigation going on, and because we relieved the 7th Fleet commander in the interim. 

So those investigative officers are usually—in this case, are both 

flag officers. They take a team to the site, to where the collision 

occurred or where the—in this case, both ships were brought back 

to appear—one in Singapore, one in Yokosuka. And they go 

through every aspect of an investigation. There is a checklist of 

things you do. We added cyber to that checklist because of obvious 

concerns with the fact that everything we operate has a cyber component to it—networks, gear, radios. Everything. And so we want 

to make sure we understand that that is not—we want to eliminate 

that as a potential causal factor to a mishap. 

Those investigations can take a week, 2, 3 weeks. And a report 

is then passed to the convening authority. The investigation is not 

complete at that point. That convening authority then gets to endorse the report, ask additional questions, go review the following 

things—I am not satisfied with X, Y, or Z. And then the investigating officer has to go back, look at those things, and provide an 

addendum to the report. 

And then when commander of the 7th Fleet is complete with his 

endorsement, it gets passed to PAC [Pacific] Fleet. And in the case 

of Fitzgerald, that is where the current report and investigation reside with Admiral Swift. He then has a responsibility to look at the 

report for completeness and any findings of fact that he is unsatisfied with and wants further investigation. He can direct it in that 

endorsement. 

Ultimately, it comes to me, both of those investigations. So a lot 

of people think that once the investigating officer submitted a report, the investigation’s done, we should share that information. 

But I appreciate the opportunity to explain that the endorsement 

process is still part of the investigation, because we could ask for 

additional investigations. So that is on the investigation side. That 

is the very tactical level. What happened to that ship? What caused 

that particular incident? 

The comprehensive review that we directed Admiral Davidson 

stand up, 60 days was to go out and look at all the man, train, and 

equip functions across the force but with specific focus on FDNF 

Japan because of these four mishaps that have occurred in the last 

year out there, to look for things like career path management, for 

are we doing the right training? Is the model for how we employ 

forces in FDNF the right model? Is the maintenance model that 

supports it the right model? All of those things we have kind of already talked about in this hearing. 

And then above that level, the Secretary is doing a strategic 

readiness review where he is going to look across the Department 

at things that are policy related, resourcing related. Are we making 

the right choices? Do we need more guidance? 
21 

And it will be a nice complement to the comprehensive review, 

because it will look above where Admiral Davidson is looking. So 

we will get a very strategic, operational, and tactical understanding 

of what has occurred, why it occurred, and then what are the 

things we are going to do to fix those issues. Does that help? 

Mr. COURTNEY. It is. Thank you. 

And I think it is important just for the public and obviously the 

families to understand, you know, again, the different steps. And 

I am sure, you know, the committees will be, you know, following 

it like a box score in terms of, you know, asking questions. 

In your written testimony, which I know you summarized, and 

we, you know, appreciate that. But you did make, I thought, a very 

powerful statement, which is as follows: No matter how tough our 

operating environment or how strained our budget, we shouldn’t be 

and cannot be colliding with other ships and running aground. This 

is not about resourcing. It is about safety, and it is about leadership at sea. 

And, again, just to go back to the process we are in right now. 

That is really what the 60-day comprehensive report is really 

aimed at in terms of just, you know, why is this a recurring event 

in this particular area of the world; is that right? 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. But I would also compliment GAO in 

this regard, that I think they offer a pretty nice blueprint for some 

of the things we need to go look at in terms of trends and what 

of those macro trends and what do they imply about the force readiness in FDNF Japan and across the fleet. 

So we will get at some of those as well inside a comprehensive 

review. But it is part—a key part of it is do we have the right 

training in place for our commanding officers? Are they getting 

enough of what they should have to operate in waters that have 

become highly congested and contested in that region. And it is a 

lot busier than it was just 8 years ago. 

And so we need to review that, and we need to review the training. We need to review the career paths for our officers, our junior 

officers, and we need to make sure that we understand that we 

have the right manning models in place. And GAO calls this out 

in the report about how we establish the workweek and how do we 

respond to the manning profiles for those ships. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. 

Well, and, again, I think that sort of follows up on what GAO 

sort of was asking for over the last couple of years as well. 

I guess one sort of footnote I was wondering, you know, what you 

would think about this in terms of that statement, which is that 

it is about leadership at sea, but it is also about leadership, I think, 

ashore as well in terms of just, you know, the way, you know, decisions are being made. And I have to say, going back to the Balisle 

report, which I am assuming all the witnesses are pretty familiar 

with—I mean, that was sort of a key critique that Admiral Balisle 

had which is that the lines are kind of blurred in terms of just 

dealing with some of the issues we are talking about here today. 

I mean, ultimately, you know, we are trying to figure out who 

decides. You know, when you have the certification issues that Mr. 

Pendleton described, you know, who calls, you know, time-out and 

just says, you know, no. You know, as persistent as the combatant 
22 

commanders’ requests are, you know, when does it reach a point 

where—on where does it reach the point where someone says, you 

know, that is just not going to be deployed because it is not safe 

and it is not ready. And so I am assuming that that is also a part 

of the comprehensive review. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. And I believe the Secretary is going to 

look at that, and a strategic review as well, for organizational C2, 

command and control. Who is responsible precisely for readiness 

and man, training, equip, and operational demand in the Pacific 

Fleet? And how does that get balanced against the larger fleet that 

Admiral Davidson is managing out of Fleet Forces [Command]? 

Mr. COURTNEY. Because even today, I have been a little confused 

about, you know, who is the decisionmaker. You know, is it the 

operational commander? Is it the, you know, forces commander? 

And I think, again, Admiral Balisle really, I think, nailed that 

pretty well in terms of just that being an issue that has got to be 

cleaned up. So—— 

Mr. Pendleton, you described the trend of the increasing lack of 

certifications which was kind of a top line in terms of the number 

of ships that are out there. 

Can you give us some more specific information regarding the 

Fitzgerald and the McCain, to what extent do they lack certifications? 

Mr. PENDLETON. I would rather defer specific questions about the 

Fitzgerald and McCain. They did have missing certifications, as did 

most ships. I would like to talk about the key warfare mission 

areas, though, if—— 

Mr. COURTNEY. Sure. 

Mr. PENDLETON. And I would give the admirals a chance to comment on the specific ships with the ongoing investigation. I am uneasy about that. 

I mentioned earlier that 8 of 11 seamanship certifications of 11 

ships in Japan were expired. There were others that had fairly significant expirations of 7 of 11 ships for fire support and surface 

warfare. And for undersea warfare, 8 of 11 ships had expired certifications. Some of those certifications were several months overdue. 

So when we looked at some of the basic certifications, the things 

you have to do to, you know, keep track of maintenance and 

antiterrorism and communication, that kind of thing, those were 

better. They weren’t great, but they were better. It seemed that 

seamanship stood out as a problem area. And then when you got 

over into the warfare mission areas, the kind of things that you 

have to do together to be able to do the missions of the ship. That 

is when we started—I presume that those were more complicated 

certifications to obtain. Honestly, I haven’t been out to talk to them 

about it. Those were—had the higher percentage of ships that had 

expired certifications. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. Well, again, I am sure my question 

is going to be asked at some point—— 

Mr. PENDLETON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. COURTNEY [continuing]. In this process because—and, frankly, it is a question that needs to be flushed out. 

Mr. PENDLETON. Yes, sir. 
23 

Mr. COURTNEY. So thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you, Ranking Member Courtney. And 

truly an indication of how important this hearing is. Our love and 

affection for the 17 sailors that we have lost and others who were 

injured, we have been joined today and we now turn to the full 

chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Mac Thornberry. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for 

being here. I just want to say I really appreciate the work of GAO 

as well as the work of these committee members and our staff on 

these issues. 

The leadership of the Department in the last administration denied we had a readiness problem. They said we were just making 

it up. And I appreciate the persistence [of] members on both sides 

of the aisle in getting the facts. And certainly GAO has helped with 

that. 

Admiral Moran, I very much appreciate you and Admiral Richardson’s commitment to get to the bottom of this matter. I looked 

a little earlier at your testimony from earlier in the year, and you 

highlighted the stresses and strains on the force based on the operational tempo, et cetera. You also testified that you thought that 

the deployed fleet was in pretty good shape, the ships here in the 

United States were really suffering. 

Based on what you know today, would you revise that assessment? 

Admiral MORAN. Mr. Chairman, so—I promised you I would be 

frank, and I will be. I personally made the assumption—have made 

the assumption for many, many years that our forward-deployed 

naval force in Japan was the most proficient, well trained, most experienced force we had, because they were operating all the time. 

I made the assumption. It was a wrong assumption, in hindsight. 

And so obviously, at this point, I would tell you that what we have 

sent from CONUS to deploy, I would maintain my position in the 

hearing last February. 

Clearly, because the models are different and because the strain 

on the force in Japan is so evident to us today, we are going to 

have to get after that question. I don’t know precisely. And, you 

know, I am also very anxious to remind the committee that—the 

committees that we have to get to the root cause of both mishaps 

before we can make a determination. 

But the trends that the GAO has pointed out, the trends that we 

are seeing in our reporting stats are concerning, and they do demonstrate a fraying of the readiness on the edges that we need to 

address. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. I would just comment: I don’t think we can 

look at this too narrowly. This is looking at the surface fleet. But 

we know we cannibalize submarines, we have got these problems 

and a variety of other problems. And the other services have it too, 

by the way, which is a more widespread problem. 

Let me just ask you this. We talk a lot about the stresses and 

strains on the people. How come the Navy has not asked for more 

people, increased end strength. 

Admiral MORAN. Manpower, as you know—3 years as the Chief 

of Naval Personnel, I have dealt a lot with the manpower issues. 
24 

Manpower requires you to project at least 2 years ahead to be able 

to know if you are getting to the right numbers. And I don’t want 

to bring this back to uncertainty in budgeting and resourcing, but 

it impacts our ability to assess the right number of people when 

we can’t predict or project what we are going to be in 2 years. 

So it has an impact. We are always trying to catch up with manpower, and I think that is part of what Admiral Boxall described 

in the afloat training group. We bought the billets 2 years ago. But 

it takes time to fill those billets, because we have to go find the 

right experienced, right folks that have operated and understand 

what the challenges are in building and attaining certifications. 

So manpower is a bit more challenging to get precise. And as you 

know well, manpower also costs an extraordinary amount of 

money. So we are always trying to dial it right. We are not getting 

it exactly right, but we are doing the best we can with the inability 

to project precisely where we would like to be in 2 years. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. If you are going to be frank, you got to be 

frank with us and tell us where we complicate your life with CRs 

[continuing resolutions] and the Budget Control Act. You did that 

earlier, and I appreciate it. But don’t hesitate to—— 

Admiral MORAN. Sir. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Where we are deficient. 

Let me just ask this, and it goes right back to something Mr. 

Courtney was talking about. It seems to me the hard issue is—and 

you talked about it—for a commander in a ship, saying okay, I 

have got these problems. I got to ask for a waiver. I have a risk 

mitigation plan. You and Mr. Courtney talked about it a little bigger. But what is going through my mind is, when do you and Admiral Richardson basically say to the Secretary of Defense or the 

President, We cannot do what you expect us to do? And to us? 

You said earlier the culture works against us. It is true in every 

service you salute and say, You give us a mission, we will do it. 

I don’t know if you have any comments on this. But what is going 

through my mind is when does a service chief or vice chief say, We 

cannot do what you expect us to do with what you have given us? 

Admiral MORAN. Sir, there is one very good example of where we 

have done that in the past few years. You will recall where we 

gapped carrier presence in the gulf for several months. We have 

done that twice. And that was a recognition that we were going to 

overstress the force and weren’t able—we were concerned about 

sticking to our plan in Optimized Fleet Response Plan, which was 

a 7-month deployment. We wanted to get there, and we wanted to 

maintain that. 

The world gets a vote. A lot of pressure came up. And we went 

down and argued why we thought we needed to stick to those 7- 

month deployments. And the joint force accepted those gaps. It was 

painful. It was a difficult message to send to the region, but it was 

necessary to be able to continue to try to reset the Navy. 

The CHAIRMAN. We are going to stay after this, ma’am. We are 

going to stay after this. 

I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Chairman Mac Thornberry. 

We appreciate your leadership. 

We now proceed to Congresswoman Susan Davis of California. 
25 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. I want to thank all of our chairs who are 

up here today and really have provided a lot of good leadership of 

walking us through these issues. And thank you to all of you for 

being here. And to Ms. Rachel Eckels, thank you. Thank you for 

being here on behalf of 17 shattered Navy families who are grieving today. We appreciate that. And it helps us to think about your 

son as well. 

I know that we have been talking a lot about all the problems 

that have been encountered, how tragic they are. But one of the 

things I wanted to ask very quickly was really about the heroism 

that was demonstrated on the ships as well. 

And I know, in having read almost that minute-by-minute account of what happened on the Fitzgerald, that there were specifically two sailors who were mentioned repeatedly for their heroism. 

Are they up for awards? Have those been submitted for recognition? What are we doing to really acknowledge the heroism as well? 

Admiral MORAN. Well, I appreciate you asking that question. 

There is a difference between heroic and valorous. And people 

often get confused by that. And it sounds like you are not. So I appreciate the fact that the question resolves around our sailors who 

operated that night, some who lost their lives, who gave their lives 

for others. 

It is a command’s responsibility to initiate the recommendation 

for awards in any circumstance. So as you might imagine, right 

now their focus might be elsewhere. But we will get to those. And 

when they come forward, we will do the appropriate recognition 

that comes from those recommendations. 

In addition to that, though, I think you also know that we posthumously advanced all 17 sailors to the next pay grade in recognition of who they could have been. So thank you for the question. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Sure. Thank you. I wonder as well—we have been 

talking about whether or not the forward-deployed model is sustainable and the fact that it is used so much. I wonder as you are— 

have looked at a whole host of different areas if you are feeling 

comfortable yet kind of ordering those in terms of priority. Is it the 

training for sure that has to be different? 

One of the things that I recall reading with this is—I guess at 

one time it sounds like the initial training, sort of the foundational 

training, if you will, was much longer and so that our sailors really, 

you know, were intimate in many ways with the apparatus, with 

everything that they are asked to do differently. Maybe you can 

speak to that. 

You know, people who know how to build computers obviously 

can respond to the needs of a computer a lot faster than those of 

us who just, you know, use it to get our job done. And so is that 

true? I mean, is there a real difference in the time that is spent 

helping to familiarize our sailors with the ship, with what they 

work with. And on the other hand, then, it is driving under, you 

know, sub—you know, decent conditions that they also have to 

have to be aware of. Where does that fit? 

Admiral BOXALL. As we look—we are continually modifying our 

training methodologies, new technologies we have. You know, I am 

sure you have heard, since the Balisle report, we had taken a lot 

of our initial training away for our new commissioned officers. We 
26 

used to have, up at Surface Warfare Officer School in Newport, a 

very long 16-week course. 

Since that time, we have restored 15 of those 16 weeks in either 

pre-division officer training, when they first graduate from the 

academy or ROTC [Reserver Officer Training Corps], or whatever, 

and then another 5-week period, 6-week period afterwards. So we 

have restored a lot of that. We have got a lot of the same peak U.S. 

personnel qualifications standards that we require every person on 

every ship to go through. 

I do believe that we should be open to looking at all of this as 

part of the comprehensive review. And Admiral Davidson, as a surface warfare officer himself, certainly understands that, you know, 

we focused our training a lot on ship handling. These are very powerful ships. We want to handle them close to a pier, where we need 

to be. We put a lot of money and time into bridge resource management, that team piece. The combat team and the bridge team working together. 

As we go forward, we will look and say, Do we need to do more 

of that type of training by individual training. I don’t know the 

right answer just yet. I am open to the fact that we may have it 

wrong. 

Mrs. DAVIS. All right. Thank you. I believe my time is up. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Congresswoman Davis. 

We now proceed to Congressman Duncan Hunter of California. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you to both the chairmen and the ranking 

members for having this hearing today. Gentlemen, thank you for 

being here and for your service. 

I will just get down to brass tacks really quick. 

You had seven ballistic—you had seven BMD ships forward deployed. You lost two. What are you going to do in the meantime 

for those two? What is going to fill that gap while they are getting 

repaired? 

Admiral MORAN. Admiral Swift has moved ship deployments and 

ships around within Pacific Fleet, which is our largest contingent 

of naval power. I can’t talk about who and what and when, for obvious reasons. But he has what he needs to replace the BMD capability that he thinks he needs to have at this crucial stage. 

Mr. HUNTER. So we know you had seven. Seven minus two 

equals five. Are you planning on going back to seven? 

Admiral MORAN. Are we replacing the capability we need to do 

the operations we have been tasked to? The answer is yes. 

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Are you going back to seven ships? 

Admiral MORAN. The seven ships will be—yes, sir, we will stay 

with seven ships. 

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. So you will have seven ships there. 

Admiral MORAN. Remember, seven ships—some are in maintenance and some are—you know, they are not always all at sea. So 

we are able to move some of those around to accommodate Admiral 

Swift’s demand signal. 

Mr. HUNTER. So you will be replacing those two ships—you will 

be replacing the capability of those two ships? 

Admiral MORAN. We will be replacing—— 
27 

Mr. HUNTER. So you will have the same capability that you had 

beforehand. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HUNTER. How long will that take? 

Admiral MORAN. As long as it takes. 

Mr. HUNTER. I mean, how long until that capability gap is filled? 

Admiral MORAN. Oh I am sorry. I don’t have a specific. I can get 

back to you on that. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 97.] 

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. 

Next, I have been seeing some articles that said that surface 

warfare officer [SWO] training was cancelled. And I haven’t gotten 

to the veracity of this. There used to be like a 6- or 7-month SWO 

school. And there is not. Now it is DVDs [digital video discs] and 

on-the-job training. Is that correct, or no? 

Admiral BOXALL. It is true at one point. Back in 2003, we initiated what we call computer-based training. That lasted about 5 

years, 6 years. And then it was—it was removed as a bad idea for 

all the reasons it still sounds like a bad idea. 

Mr. HUNTER. So you don’t mind stopping there—we have a virtual trainer in San Diego for one of the LCS variants that I went 

to, I don’t know, 4 or 5 years ago. And it is like basically being in 

a—like an F–35 trainer or something. But it is the ocean and the 

whole bridge. Is that what you call computer training? 

Admiral BOXALL. Absolutely not. The computer-based training 

that I am speaking of are—think PowerPoints on a CD [compact 

disc]. So that is what was kind of given to them. Because we took 

away their school, we said go to the ships. Do all your training 

there. 

As I mentioned to Mrs. Davis, we have restored almost all of that 

timing. We do it in the fleet concentration centers instead of in 

Newport right now at the division officer level. And all other training is similar. 

But you bring up a great point. Our training for LCS, the littoral 

combat ship, that we do in San Diego, and Mayport will be doing, 

is the best there exists that I have seen in surface warfare. And 

so I believe that we will look forward to—as part of this review, 

looking at where we can better use. And we already do use a 

lot—— 

Mr. HUNTER. Let me interject, now that you said that. There is 

two things. One is called the immersive virtual ship environment, 

right? That is the LCS—— 

Admiral BOXALL. Yes. 

Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. Trainer that we were on the actual 

bridge. Then there is a live virtual constructive training, right? 

And that is the—that is like an Xbox game where you can—you 

can have the ship blow up in places and do things. And then you 

can basically see all the outcomes and affect those outcomes like 

with an Xbox controller, right? 

So my point to this—so after you say that it is great, the Navy 

has only fulfilled 40 percent of that contract, and that is a semiparochial thing, because it is in San Diego. But I would think that 

you would have these virtual trainers for every bridge, for every 
28 

deck, because they are so inexpensive and so much easier to train 

the guys and have them, you know, fall in immediately as opposed 

to doing on-the-job training. 

Admiral BOXALL. So certainly we are looking at what you call 

live virtual constructive is—we kind of use that for our advanced 

training when we integrate ships, submarines, aircraft in a—you 

know, we don’t want to know if it is real, live, or not. But for the 

specific type of technologies, we already have that in other areas, 

not just LCS. But I do believe that we are getting some economy 

with it in that we are getting better quality fidelity training. And 

we are doing it at a better price. 

If you will go back and look at those folks that—the same trainers that criticized computer-based training, the same types of folks 

that are leading this other virtual training that we are doing are 

like ‘‘This is a best of both worlds.’’ 

Mr. HUNTER. Let me get into—I appreciate that. Let me get in 

one last thing. 

I think we—Mac said—or the chairman said he didn’t want to 

get too narrow on this. I think there is a lot of things that we are 

blaming from forward-deployed model, fleet size, maintenance 

schedule. This wasn’t a complex—like a suppression of enemy air 

defense, or something crazy like that. These are ships hitting other 

ships and running aground. And I think it is easy to obfuscate and 

say there is all these different problems as opposed to not seeing 

a ship on a radar or with your binoculars out the window. I think 

it is almost easy to get too carried away and not be narrow enough 

in this case. And I hope we just stay on this. 

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you very much, Congressman Hunter. 

We now proceed to Congressman Don Norcross of New Jersey. 

Mr. NORCROSS. Thank you, Chairman. And very humbling day 

when we go to review something like this. But having been on a 

job three times in my lifetime when somebody was killed, it immediately took me back to the thoughts that people that I worked 

with immediately reviewed what it is that they are doing and how 

can they prevent something from happening. 

So there was the first collision with the fishing trawler. Then 

there was the Fitzgerald when seven people were killed. And I 

would think that every commanding officer in every ship would immediately look to see how they are performing so it didn’t happen 

to them. And then the McCain happened. 

So I ask you: What is preventing the next one from happening? 

What is being done different today that was being done different 

from before the McCain accident and before the Fitzgerald? 

Admiral MORAN. Sir, it is a very appropriate question that, as 

you—I think you are aware, we conducted an operational pause 

around the entire fleet. An operational pause is not something we 

take in lightly. This happens in every region on the globe where 

we have got ships operating and those tied up at the pier back 

home. 

It is an opportunity for commanding officers to do just what you 

said, to also review what they—lessons learned from other similar 

mishaps so that we give them a chance to decide, is our training 

where we need to it be? Are our standards as high as they should 
29 

be? What do we need to do as a team to operate better as a team? 

Because driving ships around is incredibly team-oriented. And that 

is one of the things we are looking very closely at, at both of these 

investigations. 

Mr. NORCROSS. But the pause happened after the McCain, correct? 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, it did. 

Mr. NORCROSS. Why didn’t that happen after the first collision? 

After the second collision? 

Admiral MORAN. Sir, it should have. 

Mr. NORCROSS. As individual COs on the ships, wouldn’t they go 

through a self-evaluation almost immediately to say, What am I 

doing and how do I prevent before somebody has to tell me that? 

Admiral MORAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. NORCROSS. Do you know if that happened on the McCain? 

Admiral MORAN. I do not know exact. We are waiting on the results of the operational pause. We asked every fleet commander to 

provide input back on what did they learn from that operational 

pause, talked about these things, who actually took some action, 

what kind of additional training. The commander of surface warfare sent out additional types of training for every commanding officer to use in that with their representative crews. But I do not 

have a list for you. I am not sure if Admiral Boxall does. 

No, we do not. But we will get you one when we have it. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 97.] 

Mr. NORCROSS. Finally, what is happening today differently 

other than the operational pause? Is there anything during the operation that you have sent out to all the commanders to say you 

need to do this immediately? 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. 

So Admiral Swift has already initiated several steps, several actions to include a zero base review of the material condition of 

every ship at FDNF to find out where they have issues both in the 

physical plant but also perhaps with training and certification. 

They are going to zero base the certifications and make sure that 

all of those get recertified across the force in FDNF and then expand it into the entire PAC Fleet. 

He is doing a zero base review of the ATG manning. I am not 

sure you were here when we talked afloat training group. But that 

is the group that goes out to the ships as an independent team to 

look at whether that crew is operating to our standards. And so he 

is going to probably ask for more resources for all of those things. 

Mr. NORCROSS. Has any of this immediate review in turn caused 

any ship to be returned home or to cease operating because they 

were in such violation? 

Admiral MORAN. Not to my knowledge. 

Mr. NORCROSS. Thank you. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you very much, Congressman Norcross. 

We now proceed to Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler of Missouri. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank 

you, gentlemen. 
30 

So I, like many others here, heard the news of the first accident. 

And I was just—I couldn’t believe it. Like, how can this happen? 

And then to have it happen a second time. It is both disheartening 

and disturbing at the same time. And I wanted to follow up with 

some of the things—line of questioning of my colleague, Mr. Norcross, in that what are we doing now? 

And one thing is—I mean, we knew there was a pause. But did 

you say that you haven’t gotten the results of the pause yet where 

we had the USS Fitzgerald in June had the accident. So you 

haven’t received that yet? 

Admiral MORAN. The operational pause, ma’am, was taken after 

the McCain, not after Fitzgerald. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. Okay. But you haven’t received those results either. 

Admiral MORAN. Not—— 

Mrs. HARTZLER. That is just—— 

Admiral MORAN. No, ma’am. Not all of them. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. I want to talk about the number of hours. 

Mr. Pendleton, you touched on that. But how much are sailors expected to work right now? And is over 100 hours out of line for 

that? And how do you think the Navy should address this? 

Mr. PENDLETON. Yeah. I will defer to the admirals to talk about 

how much they are working now. 

In 2014, a Navy internal study indicated that the average sailor 

was working over 100 hours a week, about 108. And they—so that 

meant—there is 168 hours in a week. They had—so they were 

working 108 and they had 60 off. So that is about 151⁄2 hours a 

day. 

The standard workweek, which is founded on a 70-hour base 

workweek and ultimately, when they add other duties, is 81, it is 

fairly grueling in and of itself. So. 

If the Navy was—to the standard that it has, it would—the sailor 

would have 81 hours off and roughly—excuse me, 81 hours on and 

87 off. 

So just about—just over 11 hours a day is what is sort of programmed in. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. So Admiral Moran, is that something that youall are striving to get to, those type of numbers? 

Admiral MORAN. We are examining that through—we have an 

organization down in Millington, Tennessee, that is used to go and 

look at all sea duty to determine what the right workweek levels 

ought to be. We have done this for decades. 

We have been pretty consistent with it, but I think, based on the 

trend lines that we are seeing in FDNF that we referred to earlier, 

it is certainly time to look at whether the maintenance backload, 

the work effort that is going on at FDNF Japan today, by sailors 

on the waterfront, is reaching a point where that workweek needs 

to be modified. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Great. 

What about—when I first heard about this, I had the thought 

that maybe it was cyber. Now, I have read some reports saying 

that, perhaps, that has been ruled out. But you did mention that 

you are going to—in this study, in the review, they are going to 

make sure it is eliminated. 
31 

What can you tell us about that? How do you go about eliminating that somebody took over your systems? 

Admiral MORAN. It is relatively new ground for us. This is the 

first time we have sent a team from our Cyber Command here in 

Washington. Commander, 10th Fleet, sent a team over there to 

pull as much data from that ship as possible that records data to 

see if there were any disruption or interruptions that are abnormal. 

I would also offer to you that just about every three-letter agency 

in Washington, DC, has looked to see if there were indications of 

an intent or potential acknowledgment of a cyber attack. We have 

seen—I have personally not seen any evidence of that. 

But we are not stopping there. The team is in place in Singapore 

today, has been for several days, capturing all of the computer and 

network information to see if they can find any abnormalities or 

disruptions. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. Well, I am glad to hear that. And in some 

ways it would be easier if you could blame somebody else rather 

than taking a hard look at, you know, maybe it is just that we need 

more training and it is our own policies and procedures that need 

to be addressed. 

But the last thing is that—you know, I take very serious, as do 

all fellow members, of appointing our young men and women to 

your service academies. And the Naval Academy is just exemplary. 

But it is always a very sobering, but inspiring as well, event when 

I have the parents and the young men and women come that are 

going to have this opportunity. But it is sobering, the fact that I 

look into the eyes of those parents. And that while they are very, 

very proud, many times I see a little bit of fear in the back too. 

What is going to happen to my son or daughter? 

And so this is a tough question. But, Admiral, from a scale of 1 

to 10, with 10 being 100 percent confident that, when we send this 

young man or woman out to sea, that they are going to have the 

resources they need to come home safe, not from an enemy but 

from our own equipment and our own readiness. 

How confident are you that you would tell me so I can go home 

to my parents and look them in the eye and say they are going to 

be okay? 

Admiral MORAN. Tough question to answer. How I would answer 

it—how I will answer it is that I have incredible confidence in this 

team to learn from this and to get it right. And I would share that 

with any parent that has got a son or daughter who is considering 

the Naval Academy or enlisting in the service. 

We are not perfect, but we need to strive to be that. And that 

is part of what this review is all about is to make sure we understand what went wrong and fix those things to the best of our ability to regain the confidence of not only our parents and their families but our sailors as well. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Absolutely. They deserve that. And I know we 

all stand ready to partner with you to do whatever we need to do 

to get this right so our sailors come home safe. 

Thank you. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Hartzler. 

We now proceed to Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa. 
32 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen. 

And thank you, Mrs. Eckels, for being here. Thank you very much. 

Admiral Moran, one of the things that you said is troubling to 

me. And as you know, the GAO report in 2015 had a certification 

and looked at, I think, 22 areas, 11 were found to be, I guess, expired. And the one that seems to be appropriate for what happened 

is the mobility seamanship where 8 certifications out of 11 had expired for about 73 percent. 

What I am first curious about is—we have to look at these two 

collisions. And they are really with commercial vessels, large commercial vessels—the tanker for McCain and then, of course, the 

container ship for the Fitzgerald. 

I am curious as to whether part of the training that they receive—and you said it yourself in your testimony. It is very congested. And when—in these areas than they were 2 years ago, just 

the amount of traffic. And we all know. The Asia-Pacific area has 

just grown, and the amount of commercial traffic that we are dealing with is different. And it is sort of the tension between commercial plus military. And I am pretty sure our ships don’t go out and 

advertise that they are going out. 

So what is it that is done in terms of the training of our sailors 

as to how to prepare when they are—you know, it is not whether 

you can aim the missile correctly or anything like that. This is different. This is just being in—like on the freeway. How are you 

going to manage that? Is that something that we have sort of overlooked? We are so busy training them on cybersecurity and radar 

and everything else that we are not—we missed the fundamental 

types of issues like how to navigate? 

Admiral MORAN. We are asking the same question. And I think 

Admiral—I know Admiral Davidson is going to look very hard at 

that in this comprehensive review. 

But you are absolutely right. We have moved from a country 

road to 395 going south right now in places like the Singapore 

Straits, in the Red Sea, and other areas where we need to be as 

a Navy. 

But it is—I would offer Admiral Boxall, who has been there and 

driven ships in that region, maybe he could comment on that as 

well. 

Admiral BOXALL. Absolutely. 

The region has gotten much more difficult to navigate. There is 

no question. But to your point of, we ought to be able to do it there, 

anywhere, all the time. And we absolutely agree with you there 

and why we are so committed to getting this right. 

We have—to your question on the certification specifically. There 

is two certifications that I think come most to mind when you look 

at our ability to safely navigate. One is MOB–D, mobility—I’m 

sorry—MOB–N, mobility navigation, and the second one is mobility 

seamanship. 

The seamanship looks mostly at deck evolutions. Those are how 

do you tie up the ship, how do you use boats and things like that. 

The navigation one is absolutely critical and why, if you look, most 

of those are done first when the ships come out. 
33 

We have a tiering concept now that focuses on those skill sets. 

And even in the GAO report, he will let you know that the tier 1 

are less expired than the tier 2, warfighting. 

We probably need to look more closely at—there might be a tier 

0, ones that never go out. And these are the types of things that 

we need to look very closely. That is what I sense. I have been in 

those waters. I had a carrier strike group there, but I have done 

it as an ensign off the Singapore Strait. And I am shocked at the 

difference between those 30 years in my career. It is like two different worlds. 

So this does—you know, we are preparing for a lot of other missions as we return to sea control. But this, if nothing else, reminds 

us of our absolute imperative to get mariner skills right. We are 

committed 100 percent to doing that. And we will do whatever it 

takes. And that is what—Admiral Davidson will make that a fundamental part of his investigation. 

Ms. HANABUSA. And I guess—I am almost out of time. But how 

do you prepare for that? It is like learning how to drive, right? You 

got to be on the road, and you got to do it. There is no, I guess, 

replacement for that. 

So is there an idea how you are going to train your sailors to do 

that? 

Admiral BOXALL. Absolutely. I have a teen driver also. I use this 

analogy. My teen driver next month will be able to drive anywhere 

in a car, according to the State. Not according to his dad. So there 

is this same type of process. We have got to give them the basic 

tools, we have got to train them together, and someone—and this 

is what we will look at—has to ensure that they meet a standard— 

not just that officer but the team—to keep that team safe. 

It is not just that one radar operator. It is not just the lookout. 

It is not just the person driving the ship. It is the team, the ability 

to communicate that data to keep situational awareness and keep 

that ship out of danger. We owe nothing less to those sailors. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. And thank you, Congresswoman Hanabusa. 

We now proceed to Congressman Bradley Byrne of Alabama. 

Mr. BYRNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen. 

I was listening to you, Admiral Moran, about the difficulties presented to you when we pass a continuing resolution. 

Last July, July of this year, the House of Representatives passed 

an appropriations bill. Last year in the appropriations bill, we appropriated $38 billion for operation and maintenance for the Navy. 

The Navy requested a $7 billion increase this year. And our appropriations bill that we passed in July, we plussed it up another $500 

million above your request. 

So the House of Representatives appropriated the money for fiscal year 2018 that you need for your readiness. The response we 

have gotten back today from the United States Senate is a 90-day 

continuing resolution. Let me read from your prepared testimony 

and ask you to respond to that in light of your statement: Funding 

at prior year levels through a continuing resolution not only disrupts the gains, it begins to reverse them. 
34 

Are you telling us that a continuing resolution actually reverses 

the gains you are attempting to make in readiness for the United 

States Navy? 

Admiral MORAN. What I mean by that, Congressman, is that 

when we cannot put ships on contract for avails [availabilities], and 

we were on a recovery path, and we no longer can stay on that recovery path, we are reverting back to a different plan—a different 

ramp. 

Mr. BYRNE. But that is as a result of a continuing resolution—— 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BYRNE [continuing]. As opposed to actually appropriating. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. That is correct. 

Mr. BYRNE. All right. So explain in a little more detail exactly 

how does a continuing resolution disrupt that or reverse that? 

What is it in your process that that causes a problem with? 

Admiral MORAN. Well, if you can’t put an avail that you have 

told the yard that they are going to get on contract, because there 

is—the limits of our continuing resolution rules do not allow us to 

put those new contracts in place until we have a budget, then that 

yard has got to do something with its workforce. And when we do 

get the money and go back to the contract in the next quarter, it 

is going to be less efficient, and it is going to be far more—well, 

I won’t use that word, but it will be more expensive, because they 

have had to make adjustments. They have had to move work 

around. They have maybe had to let people go and then hire them 

back. 

So those are some of the impacts in disrupting the yards that are 

trying their hardest to help the Navy get better in terms of eating 

away at that mountain of backlog maintenance that we all know 

is out there. And they have done a terrific job over the last year. 

And thanks to Congress’s support in the RAA in 2017, we were 

able to put $1.6 billion immediately on contract to bring avails back 

into 2017, which we were planning now to have to defer into 2018 

only to have them deferred again. So that is the disruption I am 

talking about. 

And Ron, if you want to add anything to that. 

Admiral BOXALL. No, sir. That is—— 

Admiral MORAN. He is the guy that pays the money when you 

appropriate it. So—it is important. 

Mr. BYRNE. We appreciate what you both do. 

Let me go back to the administration’s request for fiscal year 

2018. The administration requested the construction of nine new 

ships for fiscal year 2018, and the House passed NDAA—we passed 

earlier this summer. We authorized the construction, and our appropriation bill followed this, for the construction of 13 ships. 

So I think—listening to your prior answers to Mr. Wittman’s 

questions, I think you would agree with me it is better for us to 

be finding the extra money to buy those extra ships than to stick 

with what the original request was. I think you would agree with 

that. 

Admiral MORAN. I would agree we need a larger Navy, sir. 

Mr. BYRNE. Yeah. But to get there, we have to spend more 

money. 
35 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir, because the trade-offs we are having 

to make, I think, are pretty apparent. And most of those trade-offs 

involve readiness, training, and manpower. When you buy ships or 

you prioritize ships, those are the trade-offs you got to make inside 

a limited control on your top line. 

Mr. BYRNE. Well, Admiral, there was a lot of talk about what is 

your responsibility in all this. Congress bears a responsibility in all 

this. If these accidents tell us anything, it is that we can’t wait to 

build up our fleet. We need to start now. And so I was proud to 

vote for that appropriations bill and our authorization bill earlier 

this year. 

I am disappointed that the Senate has chosen to send us a continuing resolution instead of making an appropriations bill. But I 

believe you can count on the members of this committee continuing 

to do everything we can to provide you with what you need, not 

only to defend America but to keep our sailors safe in doing so. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you very much, Congressman Byrne. 

We now proceed to Congressman Anthony Brown of Maryland. 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I too believe that Congress has a responsibility to fully resource 

our armed services. In fact, I will go so far as adopt and associate 

myself with General Milley’s comment, and I paraphrase, that continuing resolutions—and I will add sequestration—is comparable to 

legislative malpractice. 

But also, Admiral Moran, I want to thank you for acknowledging, 

and Mr. Courtney pointed out, and I am reading from your statement, this is not about resourcing. It is about safety, and it is 

about leadership at sea. 

Something is wrong. In a few months, 2 cruisers, 2 destroyers, 

17 lives. I represent the Fourth Congressional District in Maryland. Three of those seventeen young men were Marylanders: Alex 

Martin; Kevin Bushell; and Timothy Eckels, whose mother was 

here today. 

Something is definitely wrong. In my 9 months as a member of 

the House Armed Services Committee, I think I have lost count at 

the number of times that senior leaders from all services have 

come to this committee and said that ‘‘We are ready to fight tonight.’’ I don’t think that these collisions are consistent with that 

claim. And regardless of the OPTEMPO [operations tempo] or the 

resource constraints, whether you have a 250- or 350-ship fleet, 

whether the defense budget is $550 or $650 billion, we all have a 

responsibility. And yours is to manage those resources in a way 

where readiness is not exclusive or mutually exclusive with safety. 

I thank you for your leadership. And I understand and I acknowledge that you get that. 

So here is my question, and it has been touched on earlier. Admiral Moran, in your written testimony, you identified cybersecurity 

afloat and ashore as a significant readiness shortfall that was 

helped by the fiscal year 2017 additional appropriations. So that is 

good. You have identified it as a shortfall. You came to Congress, 

and Congress helped. 

Can you elaborate on the progress that the Navy has made to 

improve cybersecurity on our forward-deployed naval forces, and 
36 

are the forward-deployed naval force cruisers and destroyers and 

their control systems currently equipped to defeat cyber threats? 

Admiral MORAN. Congressman, I would appreciate an opportunity to come and bring that to you in a more classified setting. 

It deserves that kind of detail, otherwise I am just going to gloss 

over it here and it won’t be satisfying. 

Mr. BROWN. And I appreciate that. And I would hope that, 

through committee staff and my personal staff, that we can do 

that, because—look, I was on the USS Nimitz 4, 5 months ago. I 

went to the command information center. I visited the bridge. 

There is a lot of floating technology. There is a lot of networking— 

ship to ship, ship to air, ship to shore. It is not a floating city, it 

is a floating State. Tremendous technological assets. And the first 

thing that came to my mind, when I read about the first incident 

of two large vessels colliding with one another, is how does that 

happen? 

And I think, as my colleague from California said, you know, 

sure, we talked about certification and training and maintenance. 

We are talking about men and women on a bridge with equipment 

and technology to see on the open seas. How does that happen? 

So I would really like to have a better understanding of the cyber 

vulnerabilities, our defense, our security, when it comes to our 

floating, you know, vessels. I mean, it is—because I have got to believe—and I am glad to hear that you are including that in the investigation, that your surface vessels, your aircraft are just as vulnerable to cyber attacks that are going to be disruptive in combat 

and noncombat operations. I certainly welcome the opportunity to 

hear more. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you very much, Congressman Brown. 

And we now proceed to Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New 

York. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to associate my 

questions with a follow-up to my colleague Mr. Brown. I too think 

it is incredibly important that we receive a briefing in a classified 

setting regarding cyber threats to our naval ships. 

But I want to ask you specifically. You mentioned that we are 

integrating cyber and network vulnerabilities as part of our ongoing investigation. How is that happening specifically, even if it is 

just to rule out cyber as a potential cause? 

Admiral MORAN. Specifically, Vice Admiral Gilday, at 10th Fleet, 

is our fleet Cyber Command, he has a team that he has formed 

that will go—they are a team of experts. I mean, very, very talented young men and women that will—that are in place and will 

use their knowledge of how they would attack to determine whether we have been attacked. And they will know where to go look. 

This is the first time we have done this. And we are not stopping 

just—this is to try to institutionalize doing cyber as part of any 

mishap—aviation, submarine. You name it. We need to go look at 

it as an order of business and not hand-wave it to its cyber. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Yes. 

Admiral MORAN. That is where we are headed. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Yes. I agree with that, and that leads to my question. You mentioned that you are institutionalizing this process. 
37 

This is the first time that cyber has been integrated. Is that servicewide? Is that going to be a part of any future investigation? 

Admiral MORAN. Yes. Absolutely. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Can you describe other activities the Navy is institutionalizing, like Task Force Cyber Awakening and CYBERSAFE, to up our game when it comes to protecting our critical tactical platforms from cyber threats? 

Admiral MORAN. I am sorry. Can you repeat the question? 

Ms. STEFANIK. Sure. What other activities is the Navy institutionalizing, such as Task Force Cyber Awakening and CYBERSAFE, to increase our cybersecurity when to comes to protecting 

our tactical platforms? 

Admiral MORAN. Yes. Great question. 

So those efforts weren’t started and completed. We continue to 

work through several of the—several of the discoveries during tests 

for Cyber Awakening, as an example. 

One of the journeys that we are on right now that our CNO 

[Chief of Naval Operations], John Richardson, has really brought 

forward is this notion of understanding all of the digital connections that are in—that are resonant within every system we have 

out there today. And they are not connected as well, and we are 

not able to operate them as effectively as we should. 

That is also driving—when you dive into it that deeply, you also 

realize that there is a cyber component to trying to make the Navy 

more digitized, because it could become vulnerable more quickly 

unless you protect that—those digital databases and the ability to 

do analytics and those sorts of the things. 

So, again, when we come over to brief you on the classified level, 

we will show you what we did with the money that Congress gave 

us at the end of this year, in fiscal year 2017, where we applied 

it, to what defensive systems and protections that we needed to do. 

And in some cases, it is fundamentally basic things like shifting 

to the new Windows across the board where we are getting commercial protection that comes with that product as opposed to living off of older Windows versions on older gear that are very vulnerable without that protection. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Sure. Just to use that example, there is a sense 

of urgency to this. Technology is changing. If an example is making 

sure that you have the updated version of Windows, we need to do 

better in terms of addressing this. 

Admiral MORAN. And the Department of Defense has mandated 

that across the services. All of us are responding to this. We have 

a deadline; it is coming up. And we are all—I can only speak for 

the Navy, but we are on track to meet that deadline on things as 

basic as what you just described. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you very much, Admiral Moran. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Stefanik. 

We now proceed to Congressman John Garamendi of California. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to thank my colleagues for delving into this issue of 

cybersecurity. 
38 

Admiral—Admirals—and we thank you for all of your service 

and for being on top of this. The loss of life is of great concern to 

all of us, and our hearts go out to all the families. 

The question of cyber is much more than hacking. The single 

point of failure of most everything is GPS [Global Positioning System]. I assume you will be looking at the downgrading of GPS that 

can occur rather easily, particularly in those areas where there 

happens to be other folks around. So I would like to have that as 

part of that review. 

Also, the electronic equipment, not specifically with regard to 

hacking or cyber but, rather, its validation that is it actually working as it is supposed to, navigation equipment, all of the radar and 

so on, I assume that the review will be in that area as well as the 

cyber area. Is that correct? 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. That is correct. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Okay. And I would suggest that the companies 

that built that equipment not be the ones responsible for certifying 

that it is actually working. You might think about that. 

Also, the commanders, the commanding officers of the ship, how 

often are they moved from one ship to another? What is the length 

of time that they spend on any one ship? 

Admiral BOXALL. As a commanding officer? 

Mr. GARAMENDI. The top three officers. 

Admiral BOXALL. Okay, top three officers. 

So the executive officer on the destroyers—right now, we are on 

a model that has the executive officer fleeting up to be the commanding officer. And the intent was to build continuity to ensure 

that there is a clean turnover. So that tour is about 18 months. 

There is a short break in the middle to kind of get them a little 

bit of head-clearing, and then they go back to the same—— 

Mr. GARAMENDI. On the same ship or to a new ship? 

Admiral BOXALL. On the same ship. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. And the commanding officer? 

Admiral BOXALL. The commanding officer, after they leave, will 

go ashore, usually, or to another at-sea job. And then they will be 

up for a major command job on a cruiser, for example, or a big-deck 

amphib or a major command-level ship. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. I have a general concern about the way in 

which the military moves people from one job to another within 

very, very short periods of time. The concern is that it was the previous guy that is responsible and left the problem and it is not really solved. I have seen this in other areas. I would like to have a 

fuller discussion about whether that cycle is too fast and nobody is 

around long enough. 

I am pleased to hear that the executive officer stays with the 

ship. Or not? 

Admiral BOXALL. Yeah, the executive officer usually stays with 

the same ship. Sometimes there is an anomaly, but for the most 

part—but we are looking at the whole training model, not just the 

commanding officer level, but also at the division officer level we 

do rotate ships. There are advantages to doing it, in that you get 

different perspectives. There are also disadvantages, in that you 

lose continuity on that ship. 
39 

This is something that Admiral Davidson, we believe, will address as he looks at the training paths of those that ultimately 

command those ships. Command of those ships is critical, and obviously we want to make sure that they have the most qualifications 

they can have. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. When the final reports come back, I assume we 

will have another hearing on the final reports, and that will be informative. 

My final question really goes to a piece of testimony earlier having to do with virtual training facilities. You specified the LCS as 

a successful virtual training program. I assume that is a bridge 

that is virtual. 

Could you go into that for the next minute and talk a little bit 

more about that and how that might be expanded if, in fact, it is 

as good as you say it was? 

Admiral BOXALL. Well, again, we are looking at the feedback 

from people using it and then from the fleet. So this is not all done 

virtually. We still do real, live, similar to how a pilot will get simulator time. What is different is that we can create a virtual environment. We don’t have to have the level of feel and touch that an 

aviation helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft will have to use. 

So this technology is out there. The sailors are comfortable with 

it; they understand it. And perhaps we can use that to continue to 

improve these skills where we may not have the dedicated at-sea 

time to do so while the force is working very hard to meets its commitments. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Those virtual experiences have proven to be 

very successful in the airframe operations. And further discussion 

on that would be useful, and your report, I suppose, will deal with 

that as a potential training asset. 

With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Congressman Garamendi. 

We now proceed to Congressman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin. 

Mr. GALLAGHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. 

I want to revisit two lines of questioning, hopefully without being 

repetitive. I think one of my colleagues mentioned the 2015 GAO 

study that found the Navy was only able to meet 44 percent of requests from combatant commanders [COCOMs] to meet operational 

requirements. At the time, the Navy indicated that it would require 

over 150 more ships to fully meet all COCOM demands. 

So my question is, has that number changed? If so, what is the 

number now? And what fleet size would that correspond to? 

Admiral MORAN. Sir, I do not know whether that number has 

changed. It has probably gone up, not down. So I will do some research and get back to you, if that is okay. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 97.] 

Mr. GALLAGHER. Sure. 

Admiral MORAN. Thank you. 

Mr. GALLAGHER. Yeah, I just think, obviously, the reviews are 

underway, and we really appreciate your commitment to getting a 

thorough understanding of what happened. But I suspect, when the 
40 

dust settles, the simplest conclusion will remain, that we have 

placed an enormous amount of stress on the fleet. 

So I think the question we need—and I know that Chairman 

Thornberry alluded to it earlier—the question we need to answer 

is, what is the right number of ships you need in order to avoid 

placing that stress on the force and avoid tragic accidents like that? 

And I think you have a variety of people here on this committee 

that are committed to making an argument for that number. And 

I think we forget that the 355 number that we throw out so often 

is indeed a minimum based on the requirements that the COCOMs 

are seeing out there. 

Separately, there was a talk about the 10-year hiatus for surface 

warfare officers and training, and I would just like to dig a bit into 

what appears to be the relative deprioritization of surface warfare 

in the Navy. 

It has been about 10 years since the SWO commanded the Pacific 

Fleet and 9 years since the SWO commanded the 7th Fleet. Isn’t 

the Navy’s traditional policy to rotate these commands so that the 

standards are upheld amongst the surface, submarine, and aviation 

communities? 

Admiral MORAN. At this level, at the three- and four-star level, 

we pay less attention to what the community device you are—and 

what community you are from than we do at experience level, judgment. And, you know, in very simple terms, best athletes for the 

job. 

It, of course, would be ideal if we had an even spread all the 

time, but that often gets disrupted by some of the other issues we 

have been dealing with here for the last several years that I think 

you have read about that have put a real squeeze on the talent 

level that is available because of ongoing investigations. So hopefully that ends here real soon and we will be back to more of a 

steady state. 

Mr. GALLAGHER. Sure. So it would be fair to say that, if we have 

concerns that there are no qualified surface warfare officers available to relieve the vice admiral—I forget the last name, apologize— 

from your perspective, that is less of a concern because the particular heritage of that officer, their community, matters less than 

their overall fitness. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. Admiral Sawyer, who we put into 7th 

Fleet, he was already designated to go there. This—clearly near the 

end of his predecessor’s tour, so he was already confirmed by the 

Senate. 

But here is an officer, a submarine officer, that operated extensively in 7th Fleet as not only a commander but as a junior flag 

officer, but also as the deputy fleet commander in PAC Fleet, so 

enormous experience and credibility in that region. So, I mean, we 

looked at that much more than we did the fact that he was a submariner. 

Mr. GALLAGHER. Is it not true, though, that if you look more 

broadly at Navy leadership from a historical perspective, there is 

a relative dearth of surface warfare officers at present at the highest levels of service? 

Admiral MORAN. Well, we have Admiral Davidson and Admiral 

Howard as two four-stars leading our Navy in critical places 
41 

around the force. We have three-stars in very important places 

throughout the Navy. So I wouldn’t call it a dearth, Congressman, 

but I would call it maybe less than our average for this point in 

time. 

Mr. GALLAGHER. Got it. And, finally, I just would like to echo 

what my colleague from Alabama said about our responsibilities 

here in Congress to provide you with the funds that you need in 

order to do your job. And, you know, in light of the job that we are 

asking your sailors to do every single day—and, you know, a lot of 

this goes unnoticed, right? Because the majority of what you do in 

uniform is actually not high-end combat; it is waging peace. 

I just really feel that we need to step up to the plate and do a 

better job here in Congress to end the defense sequester and begin 

the process of rebuilding the Navy. So thank you, gentlemen, for 

being here today. This is important. 

I yield. 

Admiral MORAN. Congressman, if I could, just for the record, Admiral Kurt Tidd, a surface warfare, is commander of SOUTHCOM 

[U.S. Southern Command], a combatant commander as well, sir. 

Thank you. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Congressman Gallagher. 

We now proceed to Congressman James Langevin of Rhode Island. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, gentlemen, I want to thank you for your testimony today. 

The incident involving the USS Fitzgerald and the McCain were 

tragic events, and I wish we had never gotten to this point. And 

my thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who were 

lost and those who were injured, and we are all anxious to get to 

the bottom of what happened. 

But this appears to be a symptom of a larger problem. I know 

we have touched on this in many different capacities here today, 

but the U.S. Navy—it is my understanding of all of this—has 

moved training out of the schoolhouses and, instead, embraced an 

on-the-job training model, which has left sailors really to operate 

with little sleep and without a singular focus on learning. 

So, you know, in an attempt to meet a high OPTEMPO demanded by the Navy, which only continues to increase, we have 

made structural choices that have left us with insufficient shoreside training infrastructure and really hindering our ability to keep 

our sailors safe, in my view. 

Would you agree with this assessment? And how do you believe 

we can reinvigorate training initiatives to make sure that any incidents such as these are not of our own making. 

And I guess—— 

Admiral BOXALL. Yes, sir. I will take that, if you don’t mind. 

The Surface Warfare Officers School, obviously, in the great 

State of Rhode Island, is an absolute core place where we achieve 

our competencies, from division officer all the way up to major command and further. 

We are going to look at that training. As I said before, we did 

take the schoolhouse training for division officers out of Surface 

Warfare Officers School and move them to a surface warfare officers school in the homeports where they are going. So we took that 
42 

16 weeks of training we used to go when I was an ensign versus 

the 16 weeks we do in a 9-plus-5 and -6 model we are on right now. 

So, to your point of what else can we do, I think the review will 

look at that, whether we need more improved and more capacity 

of training in the schoolhouse, whether it be on the waterfront or 

up in Surface Warfare Officers School. And, you know, again, I 

think we will have more information when we see the outcome. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Pendleton, do you have anything to add? 

Mr. PENDLETON. Not really, sir. That is not something we looked 

at specifically, the schoolhouse training. 

What we pointed out was, respect to the forward-deployed naval 

forces, is they were just so busy that they didn’t have dedicated 

training time. So most folks arrived—we heard when we went on 

ships and did focus groups that the fact that sailors would arrive 

green and untrained put a burden on the sailors that were already 

there. And we heard that consistently. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. Admiral Moran and Admiral Boxall, 

I also fear that the current OPTEMPO is not sustainable but that 

we seek to sustain it to the detriment of training and certification 

requirements. 

Now, recent reports indicate a large margin of separation when 

it comes to training and certifications between U.S.-based cruisers 

and destroyers versus forward-deployed naval forces. 

So were there any indications or warnings that the forward-deployed naval forces’ OPTEMPO was leading to a train-on-the-margins scenario and not meeting qualifications or certification standards for key surface warfare systems? 

Admiral MORAN. Sir, it is a great question and one that Admiral 

Davidson will absolutely look at in his comprehensive review. What 

did we miss? What should we have seen earlier to address them 

in order to prevent the trends that were already starting earlier 

with Antietam, for example, and Lake Champlain that preceded 

both the Fitzgerald and McCain? 

So we have to get after this question about why didn’t we see 

these trends earlier, why didn’t we take more action much earlier 

than now, for example. So it is a fair question and one that Admiral Davidson will look at. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Good. 

Well, I know that the review is also looking at any potential 

cyber vulnerabilities. I have had a chance to speak directly with 

Admiral Gilday about this from 10th Fleet, something that first 

came to mind when I heard of the incident. I hope that is not the 

case, but I also think that we are going to get to the bottom of the 

training issues. 

So I appreciate your due diligence on the review, and we are 

going to continue to focus on this as well. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Congressman Langevin. 

We now proceed to Congress Rodney Davis of Illinois. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to 

all the members, especially Chairman Wilson and Chairman 

Thornberry, for allowing a non-committee-member to be here 

today. 
43 

And I really want to say a special thank you to the HASC [House 

Armed Services Committee] staff. They helped connect my office in 

a very difficult time for one of the families in my district after the 

loss of Petty Officer Logan Palmer, one of the sailors on the USS 

John S. McCain. 

That is why I am here today. I am here because I appreciate 

what my colleagues on this committee are doing to urge the Navy 

and urge our military to investigate what caused these tragic 

accidents and what caused the tragic accident that took the life of 

my constituent, Mr. Palmer. We are never going to forget the service that our sailors have provided, or their sacrifice. And we are 

praying for all their families and friends and also the shipmates 

during this difficult time. 

And it is up to us as Congress to allow you the opportunity and 

the resources to fully investigate why these accidents have occurred. I really, getting here at the end of the hearing, have been 

able to listen to so much and so many questions that I would have 

had, be it the issue on the possible cyber attack that my colleague 

from Missouri brought up, be it the sequestration issue and the 

funding issue that we in Congress need to do a better job of addressing so that our military, each and every one of you who are 

leading our young sailors, you have the resources that you need to 

not only investigate what happened but also to ensure that it never 

happens again to any of us and any of the families that have been 

affected. 

So we want to provide you those resources, and we want to do 

a better job on our end. But throughout this process—which was 

a first for me, to be so engaged with a family who lost one of our 

heros. And I want to ask you about what maybe you can do, as a 

military, to do a better job of serving those families during these 

difficult times. 

I didn’t have the best experience working with the Navy. And, 

again, very appreciative of the HASC staff for their intervention. 

And the families didn’t have the best experience. While the personnel was very good at getting answers, it just seemed like it took 

a lot longer than what I would have imagined. It was very bureaucratic. And just getting information on Logan took too much time, 

and it involved way too many people. 

What can be done or is actively being done to help the families 

have a better, more streamlined process when tragedies like this 

occur? Because, again, my first experience, the Palmers’ first experience, while it was good, could have been a lot better. 

Admiral MORAN. Sir, I don’t think there is anything that anybody could have said today that would have made us feel any worse 

than to hear that a family member experienced something less 

than the sufficient amount of service that we owe those families. 

So I will take that on personally, and I promise you that we will 

fix whatever issues came up with the Palmer family. But I will tell 

you that we would all appreciate your personal involvement in 

helping get some of the information for the Palmers. 

We know we fell short on transportation issues. We know we fell 

short, in some cases, on announcing that missing sailors had been 

found before we got to the families. We know that the social media 
44 

environment that we are in works inside of our ability to move information around to those who need it first. 

Our focus has always been, ever since both of these tragedies, 

has always been, first and foremost, the families. And we thought 

we were doing a pretty good job, but from time to time we didn’t 

meet our own standard. And I am afraid to say the Palmers were 

one of them, and I regret that. I apologize for that. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, I appreciate your regret. I appreciate your willingness to work together. Let us help you make the 

steps even better. I don’t want to see any family not get any answer. Granted, I know you got a lot of good people working this 

case. 

I will tell you, I was probably most concerned that an outside organization had to pay for the flights of the family to go see their 

son’s body returned to Dover Air Force Base. 

Admiral MORAN. It wasn’t that they had to pay for it, Congressman; it was that we did not get the government to move as fast 

as we should have. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So the government does have a process 

then. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir, they do. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. That is not a requirement, to go to an 

outside—— 

Admiral MORAN. No, sir, it is not. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So, yes, thank you for agreeing to do a 

better job to make sure those families, who may not live as close 

as others—— 

Admiral MORAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS [continuing]. So they have the opportunity 

to get to that point to see their loved one return for the sacrifice 

that that entire family has made. So I appreciate—— 

Admiral MORAN. And for them to be with the loved ones and 

crewmates of their fallen sons and husbands in the location where 

that crew is going to memorialize their falling. And we are doing 

that. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I appreciate your service, I appreciate 

your recognition of the issues, and I look forward to working with 

you. 

Admiral MORAN. Thank you. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you, Congressman Davis, for your compassion for the family. 

And we now proceed to Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty of Connecticut. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, again, I want to thank the committee for their allowing my 

colleague Mr. Davis and I to join in today’s proceedings. 

I, too, lost a constituent, Navy sonar technician third class Ngoc 

Truong Huynh, on the Fitzgerald. It was his birthday, and the family basically surmised by checking his Facebook feed, and when the 

responses to his birthday wishes stopped coming, they began to 

worry. And that is the era we live in now. That is the era we live 

in now. 
45 

So my focus, also, as a member of the Veterans Committee, is 

thinking about what we owe those who serve. And so my focus is 

very much going to be on the human side, not so much the equipment but rather the human side, because much of what has been 

reported on today has to do with training, with leadership, and a 

culture of safety. 

And I say this as a daughter of a Navy man, who insisted on 

great discipline in our household. And it does make me think about 

what we can do better, as so many of my colleagues have said, that 

we owe it as Members of Congress to provide you with those resources. We need to ask you to say when we are asking too much 

with what you have and to be willing and able to say, ‘‘We cannot 

do what you are asking us to do without putting the lives of men 

and women at risk.’’ And we need to know that from you. And I 

understand that is against your culture, but it is required because 

of the commitment these young people have made to this country. 

So that is unfair, that we put you in that position. And sequester 

and continued resolutions has made that worse. But it makes it all 

the more important that you stand up for them and for this country and for their safety. So that is one. 

I look at the safety culture and think about the importance of 

leadership from the top. These incidents, I note, seem to have occurred in the wee hours of the morning. I wonder if that is an overreliance on equipment and technology with very young sailors who 

may be concerned and not have the experience with how heavy the 

shipping lanes are. 

So I think the heaviness of the shipping lanes suggests we maybe 

need to do different training. But also a safety culture of, if you 

have any doubt whatsoever, anything that seems not right, you 

must immediately notify right up the chain of command. Do not 

worry that you are waking someone up. Do not worry that you 

have never seen this before and it is your second week on the job. 

So I think if you have a safety culture, that might empower our 

young sailors, and then go to the training of those young sailors. 

The notion that they are working hundred-hour workweeks is really terrifying for them and for us. And it makes me think about 

what happened in medicine when we looked at the death rates 

with new interns who are working in hospitals and working very 

long shifts. It got so bad that States began to pass laws prohibiting 

longer workweeks. 

So, again, I think that is something you need to look at, the capacity of people to operate under pressure with those kinds of 

hours. It is simply unfair to them, it is unsafe, and it is wrong. And 

we need to do our job with providing you the resources. But, again, 

we can learn from other areas, like medicine, where, again, you are 

talking about young people who are working very long hours and 

being given enormous responsibility. So I hope we can learn from 

‘‘The Checklist Manifesto’’ and other areas which could help save 

lives here. 

So those were really kind of my thoughts about what we can do 

but also what we may all collectively need to do to protect the lives 

of these young people. And I think about this as the aunt of a 

nephew who is training to be a SEAL [Sea, Air, and Land teams] 

and is in process of that right now; of the young men and women 
46 

who come to us, who we are honored, as colleagues have mentioned, to nominate to the academies, who hope to make their way 

to the ranks of commanding officers. And we owe it to all of them 

to do a better job. 

So I hope you heard from all of us, we are not looking to assign 

blame, but we are looking to correct this as rapidly as possible, and 

then to be honest with the American public about what those demands are and what resources are necessary to meet them. 

So, again, I want to thank you for your service, but it is urgent 

that we address this immediately. And we owe it to the families 

who are here today, the families who were unable to join, and the 

traumatized shipmates of those, and those who went back into 

those ships to try to retrieve their friends and their comrades. 

So, again, thank you very much. And, again, many thanks to the 

HASC committee for their hard work in assisting us, those of us 

who are not on the committee, in trying to do our jobs for our constituents. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And, Congresswoman Esty, thank you very much 

for your positive comments and input today. 

Two brief questions from me, and then we will proceed to my 

other colleagues here, and then we will be concluding. 

But, Mr. Pendleton, how do you believe that you be will be able 

to determine when the services are achieving readiness recovery? 

Mr. PENDLETON. Mr. Chairman, we are doing a broader body of 

work essentially monitoring the readiness recovery efforts. We 

made a series of recommendations in September of last year, basically saying that the Department of Defense needed a readiness rebuilding plan that matched the priority it was claiming that it had 

that said what the goals were and when they would be achieved 

and what it would take in terms of money and time, and that there 

needed to be agreement on it from the top. 

Because what we saw when we looked at it in depth was all the 

services were pursuing individual plans in zeal but not necessarily 

being pulled together in a departmentwide plan. So what we are 

looking for, is it clear what the goals are, and how are we doing 

against those goals? 

In the case of the Navy—Admiral Moran mentioned it—they had 

a glide path that got them to close to where they wanted to be at 

some point in the future that was classified. And our concern was 

the glide path didn’t necessarily constitute exact goals. So, he mentioned earlier, this is going to knock them off the glide path. 

So being able to articulate the impacts of the decisions that you 

make if you continue with demands and that kind of thing, that 

that is the way we are going to look at, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, again, thank you. And I just have to reiterate 

again how professional and independent your reports have been, 

and so helpful for Members of Congress and our military. 

And speaking of a plan, Admiral Moran, do you believe that we 

have an effective plan for readiness recovery, to erase the maintenance backlogs, to restore the manning shortfalls, to allow the 

Navy to meet the critical operational requirements, again, without 

risking the lives of our sailors? 
47 

Admiral MORAN. We do have a plan. We think it is an appropriate plan for recovering all the areas you just talked about—buying down the maintenance backlog, getting our manpower in the 

right place. We must have some stability in the budget so that we 

can follow through on those plans. If we are constantly changing 

it year after year, quarter to quarter, it makes it difficult to assess 

our baseline. 

So I think we have a much better understanding of what it is 

going to take to recover in CONUS than, clearly, we understand 

what it is going to take to recover in FDNF. And that is what we 

have to get after. 

Mr. WILSON. And with the accidents, is the technology available 

to maintain and determine the perimeter of vessels so this won’t 

happen again? 

Admiral MORAN. We have a lot of systems that do it, contribute 

to the information that is available to the team on the bridge and 

CIC [combat information center] and elsewhere. What we have to 

do is really examine—and Admiral Boxall has talked about this— 

the integration of those systems and do we have all of that information being provided to multiple sets of eyes on that bridge at 

any given time. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, that is so important for Navy and military 

families. 

Chairman Rob Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral Boxall, I want to go back to you and get some definition 

about time versus resources. 

The Navy asked for a billion dollars to be reprogramed into 

maintenance and modernization accounts and now says that in 

2018 those accounts will be fully funded. We know what happens 

with a CR. 

But let me get to a more fundamental question, and that is time 

versus resources. Understanding those situations, are we in a situation of having the proper resources going forward to get all of the 

modernization and maintenance work done to make sure we have 

the full capability so that mission certifications can be gained on 

time? And do we have the time to do that? 

So I just want to get your perspective on time and resources and 

where you see it going forward to get to where we need to be, based 

on the inadequacies we see today. 

Admiral BOXALL. Sure. 

Time is critical. I think you heard that over and over again 

today. If we don’t have the time to train, we don’t have the staff 

to maintain the ships to the level we need, then the maintenance 

goes longer, the time to train gets shorter, OPTEMPO goes up, and 

we get into this spiral that is not healthy. 

Having said all that, we also need to maintain a good path. I 

mean, those yard periods are for a reason. We are restoring that 

readiness. We have put a lot of capacity in there because we are 

trying to restore that readiness. Trying to do them both at the 

same time is having some of the effects of trimming that time 

available. 

So we need to be modernized as well. As we look at choices between readiness and force structure, a very key element of that is 
48 

modernization. And year after year, we unfortunately have to make 

the difficult choice to delay modernization, which goes to our capability to stay up with the threats as we see them around the globe. 

I do worry about that, and that is something that we will continue to press forward as we continue to submit our budgets to restore readiness. It also includes that keeping up not just the capacity but the capability that is achieved through modernization. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yeah. 

When you talk about capacity and capability, let me talk about 

it in a different sense, and that is in the yard capacity and capability. 

When we talk about time, time is an element for the Navy when 

you have the capacity in the yards to get the work done. Then it 

is a matter of managing where things go. But doesn’t it get to a 

point where there is only so much capacity and capability in the 

yard, to where time is then not manageable by the Navy because 

you just don’t have enough capacity to get the work done? And 

when that work stacks up, then there is no way that you can pipeline. 

And give me a perspective about where things are with the Navy, 

where we are today, and the capability and capacity in our yards. 

I am going to ask you in a larger perspective. I know that your 

OPNAV [Office of the Chief of Naval Operations] duties are there 

with the surface Navy. 

But, Admiral Moran, I will get you to pipe in too. 

That becomes a bigger issue when it comes to what we see with 

submarines and other ships in the force. It kind of cascades. 

But, Admiral Boxall, give me your perspective from the surface 

Navy standpoint. I will get Admiral Moran to add in the larger perspective of the Navy, because I do think it has some reverberations 

there with surface Navy work. 

Admiral BOXALL. Absolutely, sir. As you know, all surface ship 

availabilities and maintenance are done in the private shipyards. 

They want stability, as you know, and to get stability you have to 

have the money there and the commitment to doing that maintenance and modernizations that we—so, right now, we are putting 

money into that, and we are seeing this kind of lagged response 

and delay in building the workforce, delay in having the available 

private shipyard workers, and, oh, yeah, the quality of the people 

in those shipyards. They are all competing for the same workers. 

So, as the workload goes up, good news story that we are restoring readiness. But we can’t do it quickly enough, and we are going 

to get bogged down, which will put more pressure on those forces. 

I think that is what you were hopefully trying to get at. 

MR. WITTMAN. Yeah, it was. 

And then, Admiral Moran, I wanted to get your perspective, because we are starting to see some of that reverberate over into 

ramping up there also with the public yards. And then there is a 

crossover, because the public yards and the private yards are competing for the same skilled workforce. So then, Admiral Boxall, that 

complicates your issue in getting throughput through the private 

yards. 
49 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. It is a tough problem just in the talent 

that we have across the yards. But on the public side, it is the only 

place we can do nuclear work. So it is the only place you can—— 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yeah. 

Admiral MORAN [continuing]. Build and fix carriers, the only 

place for—— 

Mr. WITTMAN. Uh-huh. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. Go ahead. 

Mr. WITTMAN. And I think as far as the whole scope of this goes, 

one of the things we have seen both with the Secretary of the 

Navy’s office and within the Navy is a roller-coaster ride on 

throughput of work. And if we have that roller-coaster ride, we 

won’t be able to maintain capacity and capability to get the work 

done. 

So even if we do have the will and the resources and then we 

make the time for this to happen, if we don’t have the workforce 

there or if we ask the workforce to spin up with thousands of workers and then spin down by sending them out, we are going to be 

in a very, very difficult situation. 

So I am hopeful that, as you all look at this, both in Admiral 

Davidson’s view of what is going on, the internal review, as well 

as Secretary Spencer’s review, that it also carries over into the 

courses of action to correct this and seeing what do we do to make 

sure that there is that capacity there that is sustainable in yards 

public and private. 

Admiral MORAN. Yes, sir. That is a critical element of these reviews, no doubt. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Yeah. Very good. 

Let me end with one additional question for Rear Admiral Boxall. 

In each of the two collisions for Fitzgerald and John McCain, 

these were happening during routine operations. And what we see 

around the world today—and you all have alluded to that—that 

there are over 50,000 vessels transiting in the oceans every day. 

That is a lot of traffic out there. Even though the oceans are big, 

that is a lot of traffic. And as you point out, too, much of it is 

necked down into some critical areas—Tokyo shipping lanes, 

Straits of Malacca, Straits of Hormuz, all those areas where the 

Navy operates on a daily basis. 

What we see, too, is we have the ships that we interact with that 

are much less capable as far as the capability of their sensors, their 

situational awareness. Our warships, the best in the world, lots of 

sensors, lots of capability. 

Admiral Boxall, as you know, and going to your background, 

being the former Shiphandler of the Year there, Pacific Fleet, you 

have firsthand experience about what it takes to successfully handle a ship. Based on your experience, give me your perspective on 

where we need to go in training within that realm today and what 

we need to do to make sure we are developing the best mariners 

for our surface force. 

And I know you spoke a little bit about that, but I wanted to get 

your perspective, because you have been there, you had that experience, you were there on the bridge handling that ship, have been 
50 

recognized for your skill in doing that. So you have a unique perspective. 

I just wanted to get you to share this as we kind of close things 

down. I know we are going to go to Mr. Courtney too, so—— 

Admiral BOXALL. Yes, sir. Honestly, when I have heard of these 

incidents, I was, frankly, shocked. I have observed a lot of strong 

professionalism in the folks that I have dealt with in my strike 

group tour, throughout the service. So I am not sure what that is 

going to find and what we are going to do and how we address 

those things. 

But to your question of how we get good at our mariner skills, 

we have to get back to basics. I mean, yes, we are warships with 

the best sensors and capabilities in the world. A lot of those aren’t 

used for navigation. But yet our tools for navigation are good 

enough to do what we need to do. The question is, are we using 

them the best way we can? 

I know you are a fisherman in your past, and I know you spend 

a lot of time on the water, as I do. And I believe there is a fundamental skill that mariners, whether you are in a fishing boat, 

whether you are in a merchant vessel, or whether you are in a U.S. 

Navy warship—but we in U.S. Navy warships absolutely have to 

make that our core competency. 

I have had several discussions with Admiral Rowden, the Commander of Naval Surface Force, about this. He is as adamant as 

I am. I had command of a ship just like McCain, and every time 

I see the pictures of those sailors, I think of the ones that were 

with me. And I know we have a lot more to do. 

And so I am not sure where we go from here just yet. I would 

like to see what the teams find out. And then I am ready to go and 

roll up sleeves and go do whatever it takes, to include coming back 

here to ask you to maybe assist us, as we make any changes in 

those recommendations. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Well, listen, I appreciate that. I appreciate your 

perspective too. I know that you are extraordinarily well respected. 

A former employee in my office today, Commander Kevin Bosse, 

served under you, learned a lot, and is very complimentary of your 

experience there and how you pursued things. 

I know that you will use that experience in what we need to do 

collectively to make sure that we are gaining the correct and directed seamanship skills, navigating skills, with all of our officers 

and crew members onboard our surface fleet. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Chairman Rob Wittman. 

We now proceed to Ranking Member Joe Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, I want to thank all the witnesses for your outstanding 

testimony here today. 

You know, I was thinking, having listened to the whole hearing, 

about Admiral Moran’s first visit to this Congress back in January, 

where, again, there was a lot of excitement over the Force Structure Assessment and increasing the size of the fleet. And, again, 

I think our committee has gotten us off to a good start in terms 

of the NDAA. 
51 

But your testimony was: Let’s remember, first things first. We 

have to, you know, focus on the existing fleet to make sure that, 

you know, during that time that it takes to—with shipbuilding 

being such a long game, to get to these higher numbers, that we 

are still able to perform the missions of the Navy. 

And I think, again, those words really reverberate today in terms 

of just, you know, the discussion and the incidences that we are 

talking about, that, you know, focusing on what you told us to focus 

on is really critical to all of the goals that we are trying to achieve, 

which is to, you know, do what the Navy does in terms of its missions but also making sure that it gets done safely. 

And I guess, you know, Mr. Wilson asked the question about how 

do we get to that level of adequate readiness. And your comment 

about the fact that, you know, the forward-deployed forces is still 

really the tough one here in terms of just how do we, you know, 

achieve that. I think you said you had a pretty good vision or the 

Navy has a pretty good vision about how to do it with the ships 

that are based in the U.S. 

And, Mr. Pendleton, your graph on page 6 of the report, which, 

again, showed the difference between, you know, training, maintenance, and deployment and planned schedules for, you know, U.S.- 

based ships versus Japan, again, really vividly shows the sharp difference in terms of—and that sort of adds the degree of difficulty 

in terms of trying to solve this problem. 

So, in the meantime, the question which we have been talking 

about is, you know, who is the decisionmaker for the forwarddeployed forces while we are trying to figure this out? And I know 

that is probably going to be part of the Davidson study, in terms 

of just trying to get the lines of decision making clear, but one last 

time: Who decides, you know, for the forward-deployed fleet in 

terms of man, train, and equip decisions and, you know, the final 

decision to send these ships to sea? Is it the operational admiral, 

or is it the forces commander? 

Admiral MORAN. Yeah. Understandably, Congressman, this is 

not simple. And I think when we talk about man, train, and equip, 

there are many people that are responsible for that. It works its 

way all the way through the surface force, for example, when we 

talk surface ships. Obviously, the carrier has components of aviation, so on and so forth. So there are many places and people that 

are responsible for adequately resourcing the manning, training, 

and equipping. 

The operational tempo, the operations and how often those ships 

and what types of missions they are going on and how to prioritize 

the training that they do get, or that they are required to get, for 

those missions, is clearly the local operational commanders in 

Japan. 

The model, though, the model that you reflect here on page 6, is 

a big Navy discussion. So the CNO and I and the four-star fleet 

commanders have got to look at what Admiral Davidson’s review 

finds. Is the model out of alignment for what we have asked them 

to do? And, going forward, do we need to make adjustments? That 

will be title 10, [section] 1, if you will, responsibility to make those 

course corrections based on the recommendations. 
52 

In the interim period, Admiral Swift is going after this to make 

sure, as we go through the review, he has a deeper understanding 

and will adjust where he needs to adjust to lower the tension, if 

you will, between that OPTEMPO and the maintenance/training 

aspects of what he is doing out in Japan. 

Mr. COURTNEY. I think that answer sheds more light in terms of 

the question. 

And, again, I thought your answer to Chairman Thornberry 

about the fact that, you know, the Navy made a tough call in terms 

of the carrier deployments, but, again, it was just driven by external forces, you know, that we had to set up a schedule and stick 

to it. And I think that answering the question that you just did and 

Admiral Davidson’s report is going to help us sort of make sure 

that we are just not biting off more than we can chew. 

And I think it kind of screams out from the report from GAO 

that that is something that we have to understand, that, you know, 

a 100-hours-a-week deployment has—you know, there has to be a 

way to decide when to rebalance. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you very much, Ranking Member Joe 

Courtney. 

And we want to thank all of our witnesses for your being here 

but, also, in particular, for your service to the American people to 

protect American families. 

Also, it is an opportunity for us to thank the professional staff 

who have been here and have been so helpful. The Armed Services 

Committee is just blessed with remarkable people. And we are particularly blessed with Margaret Dean, because not only is she a 

professional staff member but she was a very appreciated member 

of the Navy Reserve. 

So, at this time, we shall adjourn. 

[Whereupon, at 5:55 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 

(57) 

Statement of the Honorable Joe Wilson 

Chairman, Readiness Subcommittee 

"Navy Readiness-Underlying Problems Associated with the USS 

Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain" 

September 7, 2017 

I call this joint hearing of the subcommittees on Readiness and 

Seapower and Projection Forces of the House Anned Services Committee to 

order. 

We are here in honor and memory of the seven USS Fitzgerald sailors 

Shingo Douglass 

Noe Hernandez 

Ngoc Truong Huynh 

Xavier Martin 

Gary Rehm Jr. 

Dakota Rigsby 

Carlos Victor Sibayan 

And the ten USS John S. McCain sailors 

Kevin Bushell 

Dustin Doyon 

Jacob Drake 

Timothy Eckels Jr. 

Charles Findley 

John Hoagland III 

Corey Ingram 

Abraham Lopez 

Kenneth Smith 

Logan Palmer 

Ms. Rachel Eckels, mother of Petty Officer Timothy Eckels, Jr., is here 

with us today. Ms. Eckels, we extend our deepest sympathies and profound 

sorrow for your loss. 

I want to welcome our members to today's hearing, and I offer a 

special welcome to our full committee Chairman, the Honorable Mac 

Thornberry. Chairman Thornberry has been the leader of our ongoing efforts 

to mitigate our military readiness challenges and I want to thank him for his 

leadership and for being here today to hear about the challenges illuminated 

by the collisions in the Pacific. 

I also extend a warm welcome to Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty 

from Connecticut and Congressman Rodney Davis from Illinois. 
58 

I ask unanimous consent that a Member who is not a member of the 

Committee on Armed Services be allowed to participate in today's hearing 

after all subcommittee Members, and then full committee Members, have had 

an opportunity to ask questions. 

As we begin today's unclassified hearing on "Navy ReadinessUnderlying Problems Associated with the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. 

McCain" I have no doubt that our Navy remains the most powerful in the 

world, but these recent tragic events only reinforce our committee's concerns 

about the depth of readiness challenges that the Navy faces. l am equally 

concerned about shortfalls in force structure and whether the sustained 

operational tempo of a 277 ship Navy may have contributed to these events. 

I fully believe that the first responsibility of the national government is 

to provide for the national security of its citizens-and that is especially true 

of our sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines; therefore, it is our responsibility 

as members of this subcommittee to continue to better understand the 

readiness situation and underlying problems of the United States Navy, and 

then for us to chart a course which best assists the Department of the Navy in 

correcting any deficiencies and shortfalls. 

We now ask the senior leaders of the U.S. Navy and Government 

Accountability Office, here with us today, to be candid and in your best 

judgement advise us on the underlying problems associated with the USS 

Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain and how to recover from these tragic 

events. 

This afternoon we are honored to have with us: 

• Admiral Bill Moran, Vice Chief of Naval Operations 

• Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall, Director, Surface Warfare 

and 

• Mr. John Pendleton, Director, Defense Force Structure and 

Readiness Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office 

I would now like to turn to our Ranking Member, Congresswoman 

Madeleine Bordallo of Guam, for any remarks she may have. 
59 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL 

RELEASED BY THE HOUSE ARMED 

SERVICES COMMITTEE 

STATEMENT OF 

ADMIRAL WILLIAM F. MORAN 

Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall 

U.S. NAVY 

VICE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS 

BEFORE THE 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 

ON 

NAVY READINESS-UNDERLYING PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE USS 

FITZGERALD (DOG 62) AND USS JOHNS. MCCAIN (DOG 56) 

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL 

RELEASED BY THE HOUSE ARMED 

SERVICES COMMITTEE 
60 

Chairman Thornberry, Chairman Wilson, Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, 

Ranking Member Courtney, and distinguished rnernbers of the subcommittees, I appreciate the 

opportunity to testify today. 

First and foremost, I want to express our deepest regret and sadness for the recent loss 

of 17 members of our Navy family who served their country and their Navy with pride and 

honor. At the dignified return of remains last week for the ten John S. McCain Sailors, we 

were once again reminded of our solemn obligation for the safety our teammates. Family 

members present were strong, faithful, proud and of course anxious to find out what 

happened, why it happened and wanted reassurance that we learn from this tragedy in order 

to prevent mishaps like this from occurring in the future. Just like with families of USS 

Fitzgerald, our immediate concern and focus was and continues to be providing full support to 

these families and to our crews. 

I'd like to reiterate that the process of determining cause and affixing responsibility is 

methodical, and while it's frustrating and often difficult, all of us must resist making 

assumptions or arriving at conclusions in the absence of evidence. It is critical that the 

integrity of the ongoing investigations be protected and that the greatest degree of 

transparency is demonstrated in their results to the Administration, Congress and the 

American people. 

These incidents were tragic. But in the midst of catastrophic flooding, loss of critical 

systems, and crew casualties, our Sailors saved shipmates and kept their ships afloat. This 

doesn't just happen; it's a testament to the effective training, proficiency, and discipline of the 

Sailors on FITZGERALD and MCCAIN. 

Today I will return to many of the same themes that you heard from me in February. 

Our operational demands continue to grow with an undersized fleet. In short, we continue to 

have a supply and demand problem which is placing a heavy strain on the force. The Navy 

has deployed, on average, about 100 ships around the world each day, collectively steaming 

thousands of underway days each year, despite having the smallest battle fleet since before 

World War I, and significantly smaller than the Navy we had immediately after 9/11 over a 

decade ago. 
61 

Although warfighting capabilities of ships have dramatically increased in the last 

century, the size and scope of U.S. responsibilities around the world have also increased. The 

old adage that "quantity has a quality all its own" rings true in today's maritime environment. 

And we've taken important steps to address this issue by stationing more forward deployed 

units in the Western Pacific, Arabian Sea and Europe which enables greater presence than the 

current fleet size could otherwise support. This allows us to deter aggression, and when 

necessary, defuse threats and contain conflict to prevent wider regional disruption. However, 

even with adding more forward deployed naval forces (FDNF), demand continues to grow, 

exposing these forces to the strains of persistently high operational tempo. 

An often-overlooked aspect of funding readiness is that we don't just fund readiness 

with dollars. We also fund it with time. Like dollars, time is a currency that must be budgeted 

and protected to ensure our ships are maintained, modernized, and trained to carry out the 

missions assigned. Persistent high operational tempo costs us time to prepare, maintain and 

thoroughly train our crews. Add to this mix, a lack of timely approved budgets which generate 

impacts on planning large events like ship maintenance and modernization yard periods and 

we end up piling work, time and difficult resourcing decisions on the Fleet. 

Back in February, I cited funding reductions and consistent uncertainty about 

Congressional budget approvals as especially damaging, as they prevent us from taking steps 

to mitigate the burden on ships and sailors imposed by the high operational demand. 

Crucially, Congress approved $2.8B in funding in the Fiscal Year 2017 Request for 

Additional Appropriations that addressed the most significant readiness shortfalls in the Fleet. 

This helped us begin to dig out from readiness holes that resulted from repeated Continuing 

Resolutions and Budget Control Act (BCA) impacts. The addition of the FY17 funds enabled 

us to retain five deployments, fund fourteen maintenance availabilities, add needed flying 

hours, improve cyber security afloat and ashore, reduce gaps at sea in key operational billets 

and provide critical facility restoration and modernization. We have continued to build on this 

foundation in the Navy's submission in the Fiscal Year 2018 President's Budget, which adds 

$3.4B in order to maintain these readiness gains and also make the Fleet whole. Our Fiscal 

Year 2018 requests target Fleet wholeness through investments that increase end strength, 

increase the numbers of people who maintain and repair our ships and aircraft, fund afloat 

2 
62 

readiness accounts to their maximum, and purchase future platforms and capabilities needed 

to sustain the advantage over our adversaries. 

These funds will only have the desired impact if they are approved and executed in a 

stable manner. While we have prioritized our maintenance and readiness dollars, the positive 

effects of funding do not remove this deficit overnight; they take both time and predictable 

resources that are adequate to sustain the upward trend. Funding at prior year levels through 

a Continuing Resolution not only disrupts the gains, it begins to reverse them. 

As documented in various studies and reports, both from within and outside the Navy, 

managing these challenges is complex and we don't always get it completely right We are 

constantly developing, measuring and refining our force generation methods. Naval Forces 

are accustomed to long and arduous hours at sea, and are accustomed to short notice high 

intensity demands in congested waterways, rapidly shifting mission sets and persistent threats 

in all theaters. The Navy remains a force that prioritizes getting the mission done in support of 

our Nation. 

All of this, in light of recent mishaps at sea, demands we take a hard look at our 

processes, organizations, training, and systems to ensure that we are providing our Sailors 

with the necessary resources and adequate training to effectively carryout our missions. No 

matter how tough our operating environment, or how strained our budget, we shouldn't be and 

cannot be colliding with other ships and running aground. That is not about resourcing; it is 

about safety and it is about leadership at sea. We are shocked by these recent events, and 

that is why the Chief of Naval Operations has initiated a 60-day Comprehensive Review, led by 

Admiral Davidson, Commander United States Fleet Forces. 

These reviews will include, but not limited to, trends in individual training, unit level 

training, development and certification of deployed forces, operational tempo and risk 

management, and material readiness and practical utility of navigation equipment, sensors, 

and combat systems. They will also focus on surface warfare training and career 

development, including tactical and navigational proficiency. All resources will be available for 

these reviews. 

3 
63 

There are also multiple investigations into the cause of the mishaps ongoing to 

determine specific root causes of these two separate incidents. As stated in my opening, 

drawing conclusions at this point is premature, but I am confident the Navy's investigation 

process will highlight the areas that contributed to the mishaps, and point us to areas that we 

must address. 

I'll conclude by stating that professional seamanship is the standard with no exceptions. 

We owe it to the Sailors and families of the lost to learn from these tragic events. Although we 

operate in a dangerous and demanding environment and will never be able to eliminate all risk, 

you have my assurance that we will, with great speed, provide you, the American people, and 

our Navy team with our assessment of how to best move forward. On behalf of all Sailors, 

their families, and our Navy Civilians, I thank you for your continued support, and look forward 

to your questions. 

4 
64 

5/31/2016- Present 

ADMIRAL BILL MORAN 

Adm. Bill Moran is a native of New York and graduated with a Bachelor of Science from 

the United States Naval Academy in 1981 and a master's degree from the National War 

College in 2006. 

As a flag officer, he has served as commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group; director, 

Air Warfare (N98) on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations; and most recently as the 

57th chief of naval personnel. 

His operational tours spanned both coasts, commanding Patrol Squadron (VP) 46 and 

Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing 2. He served as an instructor pilot in two tours with VP30 and as a staff member for Commander, Carrier Group 6 aboard USS Forrestal (CVA 

59). 

Ashore, he served as executive assistant to the chief of naval operations; executive 

assistant to Commander, U.S. Pacific Command; deputy director, Navy staff; and assistant 

Washington placement officer and assistant flag officer detailer in the Bureau ofNaval 

Personnel. 

Moran assumed duties as the Navy's 39th vice chief of naval operations, May 31, 2016. He 

is a senior naval advisor to the secretary of the Navy and the chief of naval operations. 

He is entitled to wear the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, 

Legion of Merit (five awards) and other various personal, unit and service awards. 
65 

Rear Admiral Ronald A. Boxall 

Director, Surface Warfare (N96) 

Rear Adm. Ronald Boxall is a native of Holland Patent, New York. He attended The 

Pennsylvania State University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Science and was 

commissioned in 1984. He also attended the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, 

California, where he earned a Master of Science in lnfonnation Systems and later attended 

the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, earning a Master of Arts in National 

Security and Strategic Studies. 

Boxall's sea duty assignments include: commander, Carrier Strike Group 3 embarked in 

USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74); command ofUSS Lake Erie (CG 70) and USS Carney 

(DOG 64); executive officer ofUSS Hue City (CG 66); combat systems officer in USS 

Simpson (FFG 56) and USS Ramage (DOG 61); and division officer in USS Merrill (DD 

976) and USS Kinkaid (DD 965). During his seagoing career, he has made numerous 

deployments around the world from the Western Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans to the 

Baltic, Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas as well as combat operations in the Arabian 

Gulf and counter-narcotics operations off South America. A former Pacific Fleet 

Shiphandler of the Year, he was also fortunate to have been associated with four 

outstanding Battle "E" winning crews. 

Ashore he served in numerous joint and staff billets to include: deputy director for Joint 

Strategic Planning (J-5) and deputy and chief of the Joint Staff Quadrennial Defense 

Review Office (J-8) on the Joint Staff, where he was selected as Action Officer of the 

Year; deputy director for Surface Warfare (N96B), executive assistant to the deputy chief 

of naval operations for Integration of Capabilities and Resources (N8), and executive 

assistant to the director of Navy Warfare Integration (N8F) on the Office of the Chief of 

Naval Operations (OPNA V) staff; and placement officer and deputy Surface Officer 

Distribution Division (PERS-41 B) at Naval Personnel Command. 

He is currently serving as the director, surface warfare, OPNA V N96 in the Pentagon. 

Boxall's military awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, 

Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service 

Commendation Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal and the Navy and 

Marine Corps Achievement Medal, as well as various campaign and unit awards. 

Additionally, he was a recipient of the 2016 Penn State Eberly College of Science 

Outstanding Alumni Award. 

Updated: 18May2017 
66 

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 2:00p.m. ET 

Thursday, September 7, 2017 

GA0-17-798T 

United States Government Accountability Office 

Testimony 

Before the Subcommittees on 

Readiness and Seapower and 

Projection Forces, Committee on Armed 

Services, House of Representatives 

NAVY READINESS 

Actions Needed to 

Address Persistent 

Maintenance, Training, 

and Other Challenges 

Facing the Fleet 

Statement of John H. Pendleton, Director, 

Defense Capabilities and Management 
67 

., Hi9nlights ot'G~0~1f -7~8T;',~ teSi!mony: beforeJhe SuQcdriimittees on R.eactifl:eS:S and ~~apo~~ and,~rojectfon forces,'9o~mittee 

on ~tme'd>~~rv~,es, ~?liSe- o(~e.pres~ntatlv~: 

Why GAODidTttis Study 

s;nce'"anvary 20) 7., t11<rNilw hai · ~uffered fotir signific~!'l mishaps at ~a. 

that resulted in senous damage t{l its · 

s!)ips and thelpss pf 17 sai!ois. Thtee 

of theae incidents involved shlps 

hl>mepof!.el:lln Japan. tn respo~·· to 

thesE? inci~ents, the 9hiefot Nav;~l 

<?P~r~~io~S'QJPered:,atl~perat~~ry?d 

pause for all ~,ets Worlt:jwide, arid the 

\licephiefof111aval0perations .. · 

ditecte<:l a. comprebensive review of 

s!llfl!lee fteet opel>!tions, slating that 

these tragic inci<:lents ate ng! !irhitet;l 

occurrehees buf part of a disNtbing 

trend jn mishaPS involving U.S. shipsc 

ihis.statement provides infonrn;tion on 

the effects pf homeportlng ships 

over~~s, 'requcing creW:$izS'?r,r ,sl:tlfJS~ 

and not completing mainjenanqe otT 

time on !he tEiadiness ofihe Navy and 

s~.marizes GAOteCQmme0dations t(l 

addtessthe !'lavy'smainlenance, 

trainJng,. anq .other cl\all~Jiges. 

· tnphiparing this state!llent, GAO tell<id, 

on'Pi€\Vlously published work since, 

2()111. r<':latedto tbe re~dinessohf1i!'S 

hom,~po~:e~ ?Wrst?as, ~atlor training and worlilpad iss~···· mainte.nahG!> 

· cfla\ten~es"ana<>thei issueS.; 'GAO 

update(! ti:Jis intormatton, as ·. ,. 

·approp[la!e, based on Navy da\a. 

What q:Ao R~eommends 

~0 !n'ade 1l/ecolrtmendatloiis in 

Prior .work cjted fn )his,sta!ement. The 

:O"Partment of Defen~e generally 

concu[l'ed Wlt~ 'llli·of them but tia.s 

jmplemente!l only J. Go.ntinued 

'attentlbnjs needed lQ l)nsure that 

th~se r~CI;utu:rn:in'daflo{ls '~r~ 

addle~sed, suCh as. th'\ Navy 

ass§lssln!J. !he risks associated With 

Qversea;s pasiryg aitd reassessing 

sailot wort<!<iad and fax:tots used io itS 

manpc,-~.~:er requl~~n~·p~o~ess,. 

, .~te~· G~~:t7~t9pT~ F~~ mo/~ rt1tom1at)on1 00\lfact ~hr Penctteto[l: at (202} 512,34&9 cyr pendlet?fl)@sao,)JOV. 

NAVY READINESS 

Actions Needed to Address Persistent Maintenance, 

Training, and Other Challenges Facing the Fleet 

What GAO Found 

GAO's prior work shows that the Navy has increased deployment lengths, 

shortened training periods, and reduced or deferred maintenance to meet high 

operational demands, which has resulted in declining ship conditions and a 

worsening trend in overall readiness. The Navy has stated that high demand for 

presence has put pressure on a fleet that is stretched thin across the globe. 

Some of the concerns that GAO has highlighted include: 

Degraded readiness of ships homeported overseas: Since 2006, the 

Navy has doubled the number of ships based overseas. Overseas basing 

provides additional forward presence and rapid crisis response, but GAO 

found In May 2015 that there were no dedicated training periods built Into the 

operational schedules of the cruisers and destroyers based in Japan. As a 

result, the crews of these ships did not have all of their needed training and 

certifications. Based on updated data, GAO found that, as of June 2017, 37 

percent of the warfare certifications for cruiser and destroyer crews based in 

Japan-including certifications for seamanship-had expired. This 

represents more than a fivefold increase in the percentage of expired warfare 

certifications lor these ships since GAO's May 2015 report The Navy has 

made plans to revise operational schedules to provide dedicated training 

time for overseas-based ships, but this schedule has not yet been 

implemented. 

Crew size reductions contribute to sailor overwork and safety risks: 

GAO found in May 2017 that reductions to crew sizes the Navy made in the 

early 2000s were not analytically supported and may now be creating safety 

risks. The Navy has reversed some of those changes but continues to use a 

workweek standard that does not reflect the actual time sailors spend 

working and does not account for in-port workload-both of which have 

contributed to some sailors working over 100 hours a week. 

Inability to complete maintenance on time: Navy recovery from 

persistently low readiness levels is premised on adherence to maintenance 

schedules. However, in May 2016, GAO found that the Navy was having 

difficulty completing maintenance on time. Based on updated data, GAO 

found that, in fiscal years 2011 through 2016, maintenance overruns on 107 

of 169 surface ships (63 percent) resulted in 6,6031ost operational days (I.e., 

the ships were not available for training and operations). 

Looking to the future, the Navy wants to grow Its fleet by as much as 30 percent 

but continues to face challenges with manning, training, and maintaining its 

existing fleet. These readiness problems need to be addressed and will require 

the Navy to implement GAO's recommendations-particularly in the areas of 

assessing the risks associated with overseas basing, reassessing sailor 

workload and the factors used to size ship crews, and applying sound planning 

and sustained management attention to its readiness rebuilding efforts. In 

addition, continued congressional oversight will be needed to ensure that the 

Navy demonstrates progress in addressing its maintenance, training, and other 

challenges. 

-------------United States Government Accountability Office 
68 

Chairmen Wilson and Wittman, Ranking Members Bordallo and Courtney, 

and Members of the Subcommittees: 

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss issues related 

to Navy readiness in the wake of four significant mishaps at sea thus far 

in 2017. The most recent of these occurred in August when an Arleigh 

Burke class destroyer-the USS John S. McCain (DDG 56)-collided with 

an oil tanker while underway near Singapore. This collision resulted in 

serious damage to the ship, the loss of 10 sailors, and injury to five more. 

It was the second collision involving the loss of life for Navy ships 

underway in the last three months and the fourth significant at sea mishap 

in the past year. 1 In response to these incidents, the Chief of Naval 

Operations ordered an operational pause for all fleets worldwide, and the 

Vice Chief of Naval Operations directed a comprehensive review of 

surface fleet operations, stating that these tragic incidents are not limited 

occurrences but part of a disturbing trend of mishaps involving U.S. 

warships. 2 

While we await the Navy's official findings on this matter, you asked us to 

testify today on findings from our recent Navy readiness reviews. Before 

we begin, however, it is important to set the context for the challenges the 

Navy faces. In June 2017, we issued a report highlighting five key mission 

challenges facing the Department of Defense (DOD). 3 In that report, we 

noted that the United States faces an extremely challenging national 

security environment at the same time that it is grappling with addressing 

an unsustainable fiscal situation in which DOD accounts for 

approximately half of the federal government's discretionary spending. 

Within this environment, DOD is working to both rebuild the readiness of 

its forces and modernize to meet future threats while facing constrained 

1Significant mishaps include collisions with other ships and groundings. We provide 

information on the other three at sea mishaps of 2017 in the background section of this 

testimony. 

20n August 24, 2017. the Vice Chief of Naval Operations directed the Commander, U$. 

Fleet Forces Command, to lead a comprehensive review of surface fleet operations and 

incidents at sea that have occurred over the past decade with final results to be provided 

within 60 days, unless an extension is requested and granted. 

3

This included a detailed discussion of our priority recommendations to DOD. Since 

August 2015. we have identified priority recommendations in letters to the Secretary of 

Defense-recommendations that we have made to DOD that we believe the department 

should give a high priority to addressing. See GAO. Deparlment of Defense: Actions 

Needed to Address Five Key Mission Challenges, GA0-17~369 (Washington, D.C.: June 

13, 2017). As of June 2017, 78 priority recommendations remained open. 

Page 1 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
69 

Background 

budgets. Each of the military services today are generally smaller and 

less combat ready than they have been in many years, and each military 

service has been forced to cut critical needs in areas such as training, 

maintenance, and modernization due to budgetary constraints. Put 

simply, our work has shown that readiness challenges persist across a 

number of areas including, but not limited to, the Navy. 

This statement provides information on Navy readiness, including the 

effects of homeporting ships overseas, reducing crew size on ships, and 

not completing maintenance on time, and summarizes GAO 

recommendations to address the Navy's challenges• This statement is 

based on our body of work issued between 2015 and 2017 examining the 

readiness of ships homeported overseas, sailor training and workload 

issues, maintenance challenges, and other readiness issues. 5 To perform 

our prior work, we analyzed Navy readiness, training, and maintenance 

data, and interviewed cognizant Navy officials involved in fieet operations. 

The reports cited throughout this statement contain more details on the 

scope of the work and the methodology used to carry it out. This 

statement also includes updates to information as of August 2017, as 

appropriate, based on Navy documentation and discussions with Navy 

officials. 

The work on which this testimony is based was conducted in accordance 

with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards 

require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate 

evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions 

based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained 

provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on 

our audit objectives. 

Since January 2017, the Navy has suffered four significant mishaps at 

sea that have resulted in serious damage to Navy ships and the loss of 

17 sailors (see figure 1 ). Three of the four at sea mishaps that have 

occurred-two collisions and one grounding-have involved ships 

homeported overseas in Yokosuka, Japan. Appendix II provides a 

4

The status of our recommendations made in the work cited in this statement is provided 

in appendix !. 

5A fist of related classified and unclassified GAO products is provided in appendix IlL 

Page 2 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
70 

summary of major mishaps for Navy ships at sea in fiscal years 2009 

through 2017. 

Page 3 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
71 

The Navy currently has 277 ships, a 17 percent reduction from the 333 

ships it had in 1998. Over the past two decades, as the number of Navy 

ships has decreased, the number of ships deployed overseas has 

remained roughly constant at about 100 ships; consequently, each ship is 

being deployed more to maintain the same level of presence6 We 

reported in September 2016 that the Navy, along with the other military 

services, had been reporting persistently low readiness levels. 7 The Navy 

attributes these, in part, to the increased deployment lengths needed to 

meet the continuing high demand for its aircraft carriers, cruisers, 

destroyers, and amphibious ships. For example, the deployment lengths 

for carrier strike groups had increased from an average of 6.4 months 

during the period of 2008 through 2011 to a less sustainable 9 months for 

three carrier strike groups that were deployed in 2015. In 2016, the Navy 

extended the deployments of the Harry S Truman and Theodore 

Roosevelt Carrier Strike Groups to 8 and 8.5 months, respectively. In 

addition, the Navy has had to shorten, eliminate, or defer training and 

maintenance periods to support these high deployment rates. These 

decisions have resulted in declining ship conditions across the fleet and 

have increased the amount of time required for the shipyards to complete 

maintenance on these ships. 8 Lengthened maintenance periods, in turn, 

compress the time that ships are available for training and operations. 

6Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Deploying Beyond Their Means: 

America's Navy and Marine Corps at a Tipping Point (Nov. 18, 2015). 

7GAO, Military Readiness: DOD's Readiness Rebuilding Efforts May Be at Risk without a Comprehensive Plan, GA0-16~841 (Washington. D.C.: Sept 7, 2016}. 

6 The State of the Military: Hearing Before the H. Comm. on Armed Services. 115th Gong. 

(2017) (statement of Admiral William F. Moran, U.S. Navy, Vice Chief of Naval 

Operations). 

Page4 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
72 

Ships Homeported 

Overseas Provide 

Increased Forward 

Presence but Train 

Less, Defer More 

Maintenance, 

Degrade Faster, and 

Cost More to Operate 

As we previously reported, to help meet the operational demands using 

its existing inventory of ships, the Navy has assigned more of its surface 

combatants and amphibious ships to overseas homeports. Since 2006, 

the Navy has doubled the percentage of the fleet assigned to overseas 

homeports. In 2006, 20 ships were homeported overseas (7 percent of 

the fleet); today, 40 ships are homeported overseas (14 percent of the 

fleet) in Japan, Spain, Bahrain, and Italy; and an additional destroyer will 

be homeported in Yokosuka, Japan in 2018 (see figure 2). 

Figure 2: Navy Ships Homeported Overseas in Fiscal Years 2006-2018 by Location 

2006 2007 2008 2009 

Fiscal year 

Source GAOanalys•sofNavydata ! GA0"17-798T 

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 

Gaeta, 

Italy 

2018 

According to the Navy, homeporting ships overseas is an efficient method 

for providing forward presence and rapid crisis response. Our prior work 

confirms that having ships homeported overseas provides additional 

presence, but it comes at a cost. For example, we found in May 2015that 

Page 5 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
73 

homeporting ships overseas results in higher operations and support 

costs than homeporting ships in the United States< 9 In addition, the 

operational schedules the Navy uses for overseas-homeported ships limit 

dedicated training and maintenance periods, resulting in difficulty keeping 

crews fully trained and ships maintained< In fact, the primary reason that 

Navy ships homeported overseas provide more deployed time than ships 

homeported in the United States is that the Navy reduces their training 

and maintenance periods in order to maximize their operational 

availability< Ships homeported overseas do not operate within the 

traditional fleet response plan cycles that apply to U<S<-based ships" 

Since the ships are in permanent deployment status during their time 

homeported overseas, they do not have designated ramp-up and rampdown maintenance and training periods built into their operational 

schedules (see figure 3)< Navy officials told us that because the Navy 

expects these ships to be operationally available for the maximum 

amount of time, their intermediate and depot-level maintenance are 

executed through more frequent, shorter maintenance periods or deferred 

until after they return to a U <S< homeport-generally after 7 to 1 0 years 

overseas. 

Figure 3: Percentage of Time Navy Allocates to Training, Maintenance, and 

Deployment in Planned Schedules for Cruisers and Destroyers Homeported in the 

United States and in Japan 

0Maintenance flil!Trainlng ~!~Deployment 11Susta1nment 

Source GAOamalystso!Navydata. I GA0-17-798T 

Notes: Percentages do not add up to 100 due to rounding. Planned schedules are subject to change 

to meet operational requirements and have varied over time according to Navy officials 

9GAO, Navy Force Structure: Sustainable Plan and Comprehensive Assessment Needed 

to Mitigate Long-Term Risks to Ships Assigned to Overseas Homeports, GAO~ 15-329 

(Washington, D"C.: May 29, 2015)" 

PageS GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
74 

In May 2015, we also found that high operational tempo for ships 

homeported overseas limits the time for crew training when compared 

with training time for ships homeported in the United States. Navy officials 

told us that U.S.-based crews are completely qualified and certified prior 

to deploying from their U.S. homeports, with few exceptions. In contrast, 

the high operational tempo of ships homeported overseas had resulted in 

what Navy personnel called a "train on the margins" approach, a 

shorthand way to say there was no dedicated training time set aside for 

the ships so crews trained while underway or in the limited time between 

underway periods. We found that, at the time of our 2015 review, there 

were no dedicated training periods buill into the operational schedules of 

the cruisers, destroyers, and amphibious ships homeported in Yokosuka 

and Sasebo, Japan. As a result, these crews did not have all of their 

needed training and certifications. We recommended that the Navy 

develop and implement a sustainable operational schedule for all ships 

homeported overseas. DOD concurred with this recommendation and 

reported in 2015 that it had developed revised operational schedules for 

all ships homeported overseas. However, when we contacted DOD to 

obtain updated information for this testimony, U.S. Pacific Fleet officials 

stated that the revised operational schedules for the cruisers and 

destroyers homeported in Japan were still under review and had not been 

employed. As of June 2017, 37 percent of the warfare certifications for 

cruiser and destroyer crews homeported in Japan had expired, and over 

two-thirds of the expired certifications-including mobility-seamanship 

and air warfare-had been expired for 5 months or more. This represents 

more than a fivefold increase in the percentage of expired warfare 

certifications for these ships since our May 2015 report. 10 The Navy's 

Surface Force Readiness Manual states that the high operational tempo 

and frequent tasking of ships homeported overseas requires that these 

ships always be prepared to execute complex operations and notes that 

this demand for continuous readiness also means that ships homeported 

overseas should maintain maximum training, material condition, and 

manning readiness. 11 

With respect to the material condition of the ships, we found in May 2015 

that casualty reports-incidents of degraded or out-of-service 

10As of January 2015, 7 percent of the warfare certrficat1ons for cruiser and destroyer 

crews homeported in Japan had expired. In updating data for this testimony, the level of 

expired warfare certifications had risen to 37 percent for these crews as of June 2017. 

11See Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet/Commander, Naval Surface 

Force Atlantic Instruction 3502.3A, Surface Force Readiness Manual (Nov. 8, 2016). 

Page7 GA0-17-79BT Navy Readiness 
75 

equipment-nearly doubled over the 2009 through 2014 time frame, and 

the condition of overseas-homeported ships decreased even faster than 

that of U.S.-based ships (see figure 4). The Navy uses casualty reports to 

provide information on the material condition of ships in order to 

determine current readiness. For example, casualty report data provide 

information on equipment or systems that are degraded or out of service, 

the lack of which will affect a ship's ability to support required mission 

areas. In 2015, Navy officials acknowledged an increasing number of 

casualty reports on Navy ships and a worsening trend in material ship 

condition. They stated that equipment casualties require unscheduled 

maintenance and have a negative effect on fleet operations, because 

there is an associated capability or capacity loss. 

Figure 4: Average Daily Casualty Reports for U.S.- and Overseas-Homeported 

Ships, January 2009- July 2014 

Average number of casualty reports per ship 

30 

25 

20 

10 

o------------------------------------- 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 

Fiscal year 

Sowce GAOanalyslsofNavydata I GA0-17-798T 

In our May 2015 report, we recommended that the Navy develop a 

comprehensive assessment of the long-term costs and risks to its fleet 

associated with the Navy's increasing reliance on overseas homeporting 

to meet presence requirements; make any necessary adjustments to its 

overseas presence based on this assessment; and reassess these risks 

when making future overseas homeporting decisions. DOD concurred 

with this recommendation, but, as of August 2017, it has not conducted 

PageS GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
76 

Size and Composition 

of Ship Crews May 

Contribute to Sailor 

Overwork and Create 

Readiness and Safety 

Risks 

an assessment, even though it has continued to increase the number of 

ships homeported overseas. 

In the early 2000s, the Navy made several changes to its process for 

determining the size and composition of ship crews that may contribute to 

sailor overwork and create readiness and safety risks. These changes 

were intended to drive down crew sizes in order to save on personnel 

costs. However, as we reported in May 2017, these changes were not 

substantiated with analysis and may be creating readiness and safety 

risks. 12 With fewer sailors operating and maintaining surface ships, the 

material condition of the ships declined, and we found that this decline 

ultimately contributed to an increase in operating and support costs that 

outweighed any savings on personnel (see figure 5). The Navy eventually 

reassessed and reversed some of the changes it had made during this 

period-known as "optimal manning"-but it continued to use a workweek 

standard that does not reflect the actual time sailors spend working and 

does not account for in-port workload-both of which may be leading to 

sailors being overworked. Additionally, we found that heavy workload 

does not end after ships return to port. Crews typically operate with fewer 

sailors while in port, so those crew members remaining must cover the 

workload of multiple sailors, causing additional strain and potential 

overwork. 

12GAO, Navy Force Structure: Actions Needed to Ensure Proper Size and Composition of 

Ship Crews, GA0-17-413 (Washington, D.C.: May 18, 2017). 

Page9 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
77 

Figure 5: Changes in Average Annual per Ship Personnel and Maintenance Costs 

from Start of Optimal Manning through Fiscal Year 2015 

Millions of constant fiscal year 2015 dollars 

45 

40 

35 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

-5 

-10 

-15 

Cruisers 

(CG47) 

Destroyers 

(DDG51) 

llfil Change in personnel costs 

- Change 1n maintenance costs 

Source GAOanalyS!SOINavydata l GAQ.17.198T 

Amphibious 

Assault 

Ships {lHD 1) 

Dock Landing 

Ships 

(LSD 41/49) 

Aircraft 

Carriers 

(CVNGB) 

In 2014, the Navy conducted a study of the standard workweek and 

identified significant issues that could negatively affect a crew's 

capabilities to accomplish tasks and maintain the material readiness of 

ships, as well as crew safety issues that might result if crews slept less to 

accommodate workload that was not accounted for_ The Navy study 

found that sailors were on duty 1 08 hours a week, exceeding their weekly 

on-duty allocation of 81 hours_ This on-duty time included 90 hours of 

productive work-20 hours per week more than the 70 hours that are 

allotted in the standard workweek. This, in turn, reduced the time 

available for rest and resulted in sailors spending less time sleeping than 

was allotted, a situation that the study noted could encourage a poor 

safety culture. Moving forward, the Navy will likely face manning 

challenges, especially given its current difficulty in filling authorized 

positions, as it seeks to increase the size of its fleet by as much as 30 

percent over its current size. Navy officials stated that even with 

manpower requirements that accurately capture all workload, the Navy 

will be challenged to fund these positions and fill them with adequately 

Page 10 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
78 

trained sailors at current personnel levels. Figure 6 shows the Navy's 

projected end strength and fleet size. 

Figure 6: Planned Number of Navy Ships and Projected Personnel End Strength 

Number of ships 

320 

310 

300 

290 

280 

270 

2016 

Fiscal year 

2017 2018 

Numberofsh1ps 

Active end strength in thousands 

330 

325 

320 

315 

2019 2020 2021 

-- Active end strength in thousands 

Source: GAO analysis of Navy data I GA0·17·798T 

Note: Number of ships from 2017 to 2021 is based on the 308*shipfleet size in the Navy's Fiscal 

Year 2017 shipbuilding plan. The Navy has not yet updated its shipbuilding plan to reflect its new goal 

of 355 ships. Projected personnel end strength is the total number of active-duty personnel in the 

Navy 

In our May 2017 report, we found that the Navy's guidance does not 

require that the factors it uses to calculate manpower requirements be 

reassessed periodically or when conditions change, to ensure that these 

factors remain valid and that crews are appropriately sized. We made 

several recommendations to address this issue, including that the Navy 

should (1) reassess the standard workweek, (2) require examination of inport workload, (3) develop criteria to reassess the factors used in its 

manpower requirements process, and (4) update its ship manpower 

requirements. DOD concurred with our recommendations, stating that it is 

committed to ensuring that the Navy's manpower requirements are 

current and analytically based and will meet the needs of the existing and 

future surface fleet. As of August 2017, DOD had not yet taken any 

Page 11 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
79 

The Navy's Inability to 

Complete Ship 

Maintenance on Time 

Hampers Its Efforts to 

Rebuild Readiness 

actions to implement these recommendations. We believe that, until the 

Navy makes the needed changes, its ships may not have the right 

number and skill mix of sailors to maintain readiness and prevent 

overworking its sailors. 

To address its persistently low readiness levels, the Navy began 

implementing a revised operational schedule in November 2014, which it 

referred to as the optimized fleet response plan. This plan seeks to 

maximize the employability of the existing fleet while preserving adequate 

time for maintenance and training, providing continuity in ship leadership 

and carrier strike group assignments, and restoring operational and 

personnel tempos to acceptable levels. The Navy's implementation of the 

optimized fleet response plan-and readiness recovery more broadly-is 

premised on adherence to deployment, training, and maintenance 

schedules. 

However, in May 2016, we found that the Navy was having difficulty in 

implementing its new schedule as intended. 13 Both the public and private 

shipyards were having difficulty completing maintenance on time, owing 

primarily to the poor condition of the ships after more than a decade of 

heavy use, deferred maintenance, and the Navy's inability to accurately 

predict how much maintenance they would need. 14 We reported that in 

2011 through 2014 only 28 percent of scheduled maintenance for surface 

combatants was completed on time and just 11 percent was completed 

on time for aircraft carriers. We updated these data for the purposes of 

this testimony to include maintenance availabilities completed through the 

end of fiscal year 2016 and found continued difficulty completing 

maintenance on time for key portions of the Navy fleet (see figure 7): 

13GAO, Military Readiness: Progress and Challenges in Implementing the Navy's 

Optimized Fleet Response Plan, GA0-16-466R (Washington, D.C.: May 2, 2016). 

14The Navy generally contracts with private shipyards and other firms for the repair, 

maintenance, and modernization of non-nuclear surface ships. Although the Navy 

operates several government-owned shipyards, those shipyards are used primarily to 

support the repair, maintenance, and modernization of nuclear-powered ships, such as 

submarines and aircraft carriers. 

Page 12 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
80 

Aircraft Carriers (CVNs): In fiscal years 2011 through 2016, 

maintenance overruns on 18 of 21 (86 percent) aircraft carriers 

resulted in a total of 1,103 lost operational days-days that ships were 

not available for operations-the equivalent of losing the use of 0.5 

aircraft carriers each year. 15 

Surface Combatants (DOGs and CGs): In fiscal years 2011 through 

2016, maintenance overruns on 107 of 169 (63 percent) surface 

combatants resulted in a total of 6,603 lost operational days-the 

equivalent of losing the use of 3.0 surface combatants each year. 

Submarines (SSNs, SSBNs, and SSGNs): In fiscal years 2011 

through 2016, maintenance overruns on 39 of 47 (83 percent) 

submarines resulted in a total of 6,220 lost operational days-the 

equivalent of losing the use of 2.8 submarines each year. 

Figure 7: Aircraft Carrier, Surface Combatant, and Submarine Lost Operational 

Days Resulting from Maintenance Overruns, Fiscal Years 2011-2016 

Lost operational days 

1,700 

1,600 

1,500 

1,400 

1,300 

1,200 

1,100 

1,000 

900 

800 

700 

600 

soo r=====""-; 400 

300 

200 

100 

0 

11 12 13 14 15 16 

A.!t'¢111.fi}:~,airlem. 

Sot.lrce· GAO analySIS of Navy data I GA0-17~79ST 

11 12 13 14 15 16 

sUtrace c:oJ!1hahlrrts 

6,220 lost operational days 

11 12 13 14 15 16 

S:ubtna~na_S 

15Th is does not necessarily mean that the Navy is missing presence in a given area, 

because the Navy has other options to mitigate maintenance delays-such as extending 

another ship's deployment. 

Page 13 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
81 

Navy Readiness 

Rebuilding is Part of a 

Broader DOD Effort 

Note: The Navy tracks maintenance availabilities by the fiscal year in which they begin. Figure data 

showing lost operational days for aircraft carriers and submarines are as of March 2017; and for 

surface combatants, as of July 2017. Data on the number of lost operational days for fiscal year 2016 

for aircraft carriers and fiscal years 2014 through 2016 for submarines are incomplete, because there 

were stil! maintenance availabilities being executed as of March 2017. Total lost operational days will 

not be known until all aircraft carriers and submarines that started a maintenance availability 

complete that availabtlity 

Navy officials are aware of the challenges faced by both the public and 

private shipyards and have taken steps to address the risks these pose to 

maintenance schedules, including hiring additional shipyard workers and 

improving their maintenance planning processes. However, Navy officials 

have told us that it will take time for these changes to bring about a 

positive effect. For example, as of May 2016, data on the public 

shipyards' workforce showed that 32 percent of all employees had fewer 

than 5 years of experience. According to Navy officials, this workforce 

inexperience negatively affects the productivity of the shipyards, and it will 

take several years for them to attain full productivity. 

In September 2016, we found that although DOD has stated that 

readiness rebuilding is a priority, implementation and oversight of 

department-wide readiness rebuilding efforts did not fully include key 

elements of sound planning, and the lack of these elements puts the 

overall rebuilding efforts at risk. 16 The Navy states that its overall goal for 

readiness recovery is to reach a predictable and sustainable level of 

global presence and surge capacity from year to year. The Navy identified 

carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups as key force elements 

in its plan for readiness recovery and had set 2020 for reaching a 

predictable and sustainable level of global presence and surge capacity 

by implementing the optimized fleet response plan. However, we found in 

2016 that the Navy faced significant challenges, such as delays in 

completing maintenance and emerging demands, in achieving its 

readiness recovery goals for carrier strike groups and amphibious ready 

groups, and projections show that the Navy will not meet its time frames 

for achieving readiness recovery. 17 

16GAO, Military Readiness: DOD's Readiness Rebuilding Effolts May Be at Risk without a Comprehensive Plan, GA0-16-841 (Washington, D.C.: Sept 7, 2016). 

17GAO, Navy and Marine Corps: Services Face Challenges to Rebuilding Readiness. 

GA0-16-481RC (Washington, D.C.: May 25, 2016). 

Page 14 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
82 

As a result, we recommended that DOD and the services establish 

comprehensive readiness goals, strategies for implementing them, and 

associated metrics that can be used to evaluate whether readiness 

recovery efforts are achieving intended outcomes. DOD generally 

concurred with our recommendations and, in November 2016, issued 

limited guidance to the military services on rebuilding readiness; it has 

also started to design a framework to guide the military services in 

achieving readiness recovery but has not yet implemented our 

recommendations. The Navy has since extended its time frame for 

readiness recovery to at least 2021, but it still has not developed specific 

benchmarks or interim goals for tracking and reporting on readiness 

recovery. Navy officials cited several challenges to rebuilding readiness, 

chief among them the continued high demand for its forces, the 

unpredictability of funding, and the current difficulty with beginning and 

completing ship maintenance on time. 

In January 2017, the President directed the Secretary of Defense to 

conduct a readiness review and identify actions that can be implemented 

in fiscal year 2017 to improve readiness.'' DOD and Navy officials told us 

that, as part of this readiness review, the Navy prioritized immediate 

readiness gaps and shortfalls. These officials added that this review 

would guide the Navy's investment decisions in future budget cycles, with 

the intention to rebuild readiness and prepare the force for future 

conflicts. However, high demand for naval presence will continue to put 

pressure on a fleet that is already stretched thin across the globe. 

Looking to the future, the Navy has plans to grow its fleet by as much as 

30 percent, but it has not yet shown the ability to adequately man, 

maintain, and operate the current fleet. These readiness problems need 

to be addressed and will require the Navy to implement our 

recommendations-particularly in the areas of assessing the risks 

associated with overseas basing, reassessing sailor workload and the 

factors used to size ship crews, and applying sound planning and 

sustained management attention to its readiness rebuilding efforts. In 

addition, continued congressional oversight will be needed to ensure that 

the Navy demonstrates progress in addressing its maintenance, training, 

and other challenges. 

18National Security Presidential Memorandum, Rebuilding the U.S. Armed Forces, 82 Fed. 

Reg. 8,983 (Jan. 27, 2017). 

Page 15 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
83 

Chairmen Wilson and Wittman, Ranking Members Bordallo and Courtney, 

and Members of the Subcommittees, this concludes my prepared 

statement I would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have 

at this time. 

Page 16 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
84 

GAO Contact and 

Staff 

Acknowledgements 

If you or your staff have questions about this testimony, please contact 

John Pendleton, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management at (202) 

512-3489 or pendletonj@gao.gov. 

Contact points for our offices of Congressional Relations and Public 

Affairs may be found on the last page of this statement GAO staff who 

made key contributions to this testimony are Suzanne Wren, Assistant 

Director; Steven Banovac, Chris Cronin, Kerri Eisenbach, Joanne 

Landesman, Arnie Lesser, Tobin McMurdie, Shari Nikoo, Cody 

Raysinger, Michael Silver, Grant Sutton, and Chris Watson. 

Page 17 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
85 

Appendix 1: Implementation Status of Prior 

GAO Recommendations Cited in this 

Testimony 

Over the past three years, we issued several reports related to Navy 

readiness cited in this statement Table 1 summarizes the status of 

recommendations made in these reports, which contained a total of 11 

recommendations. The Department of Defense generally concurred with 

all of these recommendations but has implemented only one of them to 

date. For each of the reports, the specific recommendations and their 

implementation status are summarized in tables 2 through 4. 

Table 1: Status of GAO Recommendations on Navy Readiness Since 2015 

September 7, 2016 Military Readiness: DOD's Readiness Rebuilding Efforts May Be at Risk 

without a Comprehensive Plan (GAO-i 6-84 i) 

May 29, 2015 Navy Force Structure: Sustainable Plan and Comprehensive Assessment 

Needed to Mitigate Long-Term Risks to Ships Assigned to Overseas 

Homeports (GA0-15-329) 

Total 10 

Source GAO analyS1s I GA0·17·19S1 

Note: The two other reports cited in this testimony, Military Readiness: Progress and Challenges in 

Implementing the Navy's Optimized Fleet Response Plan (GAO-i 6-466R} and Navy and Marine 

Corps: Services Face Challenges to Rebuilding Readiness (GAO-i6-481RC), did not contain 

recommendations. 

Table 2: Status of Recommendations from Navy Force Structure: Actions Needed to Ensure Proper Size and Composition of 

Ship Crews (GA0-17-413) 

Recommendation #1: 

To ensure that the Navy's manpower requirements are current and Status: Open 

analytically based and will meet the needs of the existing and future surface -;c"'o"n"'c=ur=re:-n:-c:-e:-: Y:-:e=s------------

fleet the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should 

direct the Secretary of the Navy to have the Navy conduct a comprehensive Comments: DOD did not provide a specific response to 

reassessment of the Navy standard workweek and make any necessary this recommendation. Instead, DOD reiterated its 

adjustments. commitment to ensuring that the Navy's manpower 

requirements are current and analytically based and will 

meet the needs of the existing and future surface fleet. 

As of August 2017, no specific action on this 

recommendation has been taken. 

Page 18 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
86 

Appendix 1: Implementation Status of Prior 

GAO Recommendations Cited in this 

Testimony 

Recommendation #2: 

To ensure that the Navy's manpower requirements are current and Status: Open 

analytically based and will meet the needs of the existing and future surface -C~o:=n:=c:=u:_rr:_en:_c:_e_: v'"'e_s ___________ _ 

fleet, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should 

direct the Secretary of the Navy to have the Navy update guidance to Comments: DOD did not provide a specific response to 

require examination of in~port workload and Identify the manpower this recommendation. Instead, DOD reiterated its 

necessary to execute in-port workload for all surface ship classes. commitment to ensuring that the Navy's manpower 

requirements are current and analytically based and will 

meet the needs of the existing and future surface fleet 

As of August 2017, no specific action on this 

recommendation has been taken 

analytically based 

fleet, the Under Secretary 

direct the Secretary of the Navy to have the Navy develop criteria and 

update guidance for reassessing the factors used to calculate manpower 

requirements periodically or when conditions change. 

Recommendation #4: 

Comments: DOD did not provide a specific response to 

this recommendation. Instead, DOD reiterated its 

commitment to ensuring that the Navy's manpower 

requirements are current and analytically based and will 

meet the needs of the existing and future surface fleet 

As of August 2017, no specific action on this 

recommendation has been taken. 

To ensure that the Navy's manpower requirements are current and Status: Open 

analytically based and will meet the needs of the existing and future surface -:c""o_n_c-ur-re_;n_c_e_,: Y"e_s ___________ _ 

fleet the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should 

direct the Secretary of the Navy to have the Navy identify personnel needs Comments: DOD did not provide a specific response to 

and costs associated with the planned larger Navy fleet size, including this recommendation. Instead, DOD reiterated its 

consideration of the updated manpower factors and requirements_ commitment to ensuring that the Navy's manpower 

requirements are current and analytically based and will 

meet the needs of the existing and future surface fleet 

As of August 2017, no specific action on this 

recommendation has been taken. 

Source GAO analySIS I GA0-17-798T 

Page 19 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
87 

Appendix 1: Implementation Status of Prior 

GAO Recommendations Cited in this 

Testimony 

Table 3: Status of Recommendations from Military Readiness: DOD's Readiness Rebuilding Efforts May Be at Risk without a 

Comprehensive Plan (GA0~16~841) 

Recommendation #1: 

To ensure that the department can implement readiness rebuilding efforts, 

the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretaries of the Departments 

of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force to establish comprehensive 

readiness rebuilding goals to guide readiness rebuilding efforts and a 

strategy for implementing identified goals, to include resources needed to 

implement the strategy. 

Recommendation #2: 

To ensure that the department can implement readiness rebuilding efforts, 

the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretaries of the Departments 

of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force to develop metrics for measuring 

interim progress at specific milestones against identified goals for all 

services. 

the Secretary of Defense should 

of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force to identify external 

impact readiness recovery plans, including how they influence the 

underlying assumptions, to ensure that readiness rebuilding goals are 

achievable within established time frames. This should include, but not be 

limited to, an evaluation of the impact of assumptions about budget, 

maintenance time frames, and training that underpin the services' readiness 

Status: Open 

Concurrence: Partial 

Comments: As of August 2017, DOD had not 

established comprehensive readiness rebuilding goals 

to guide readiness rebuilding efforts and a strategy for 

implementing identified goals, to include resources 

needed to implement the strategy. 

Status: Open 

Concurrence: Partial 

Comments: As of August 2017, DOD had not 

developed metrics for measuring interim progress at 

specific milestones against identified readiness 

rebuilding goals for each of the military services. 

Comments: As of August 2017, DOD had not identified 

external factors that may impact readiness recovery 

plans. 

To ensure that the department has adequate oversight of service readiness Status: Open 

rebuilding efforts and that these efforts reflect the department's priorities. the -C~--'-~y-------------

Secretary of Defense should validate the service-established readiness . oncurren~_e: es __ _ 

rebuilding goals, strategies for achieving the goats, and metrics for Comments: As of August 2017, DOD had not validated 

measuring progress, and revise as appropriate. the service-established readiness rebuilding goals, 

goals, and metrics for 

To ensure that the department has adequate oversight of service readiness Status: Open 

rebuilding efforts and that these efforts reflect the department's priorities, the -c"o"n"cc_ur"re:_on:_:c:_:e_: Y_e_s ___________ _ 

Secretary of Defense should develop a method to evaluate the department's ~---~-"-'-----------­

readiness recovery efforts against the agreed-upon goals through objective Comments: As of August 2017, DOD had not 

measurement and systematic analysis. developed a method to evaluate the department's 

readiness recovery efforts against the agreed-upon 

goats through objective measurement and systematic 

analysis 

Source GAOanaly~s IGA0-17·798T 

Page 20 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
88 

Appendix 1: Implementation Status of Prior 

GAO Recommendations Cited in this 

Testimony 

Table 4: Status of Recommendations from Navy Force Structure: Sustainable Plan and Comprehensive Assessment Needed 

to Mitigate Long-Term Risks to Ships Assigned to Overseas Homeports (GA0-15~329} 

Recommendation #1: 

To balance combatant commanders' demands for forward presence with the Status: Implemented 

Navy's needs to sustain a ready force over the long term and identify and -C~o-n-c-ur-re_nc_c_e_: Y_:.e_:.s_:._:. __________ _ 

mitigate risks consistent with Federal Standards for Internal Control, the 

Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Navy to fully Comments: In August 2015, the Navy reported that it 

implement its optimized fleet response plan and develop and implement a had approved and implemented revised optimized fleet 

sustainable operational schedule for all ships homeported overseas. response plan schedules for all ships homeported 

overseas with six different operational schedules for 

various naval forces homeported in different overseas 

locations. However, when updating data for this 

testimony, U.S. Pacific Fleet officials stated that the 

revised operational schedules for the cruisers and 

destroyers homeported in Japan were still under review 

and had not yet been employed. 

Navy"s needs to sustain a ready force over the long identify and 

mitigate risks consistent with Federal Standards for Internal Control, the 

Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Navy to develop a 

comprehensive assessment of the long-term costs and risks to the Navy's 

surface and amphibious fleet associated with its increasing reliance on 

overseas homeporting to meet presence requirements. make any necessary 

adjustments to its overseas presence based on this assessment, and 

reassess these risks when making future overseas home porting decisions 

and developing future strategic !aydown plans. 

Page 21 

Comments: As of August 2017, the Navy had not 

completed its assessment of the long-term costs and 

risks to the Navy's surface and amphibious fleet 

associated with its increasing reliance on overseas 

homeporting to meet presence requirements. 

GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
89 

Appendix II: Summary of Major Mishaps for 

Navy Ships at Sea for Fiscal Years 2009 

Through 2017, as of August 2017 

The Navy defines a class A mishap as one that results in $2 million or 

more in damages to government or other property, or a mishap that 

resulted in a fatality or permanent total disability. 1 We analyzed data 

compiled by the Naval Safety Center for fiscal years 2009 through 2017 

to provide a summary of major Navy mishaps at sea (see table 5). 

Table 5: Navy Class A Collisions, Allisions,a and Groundings, Fiscal Years 2009-2017, as of August 2017l 

Date Incident Description Location Loss of Life 

August21,2017 

June 17, 2017 

January 31,2017 

A guided missile destroyer collided with a civilian oil tanker, resulting in 

extensive damage to the destroyer and 10 Navy sailors killed. 

South China Sea 

A guided missile destroyer collided with a civilian container ship, resulting Southwest of 

in extensive damage to the destroyer and 7 Navy sailors killed. Yokosuka, Japan 

A guided missile cruiser ran aground while anchoring, damaging its NearYokosuka, 

propeller. No injuries were reported, but the cruiser required repairs. Japan 

September 4, 2016 An unmanned undersea vehicle sank after a collision with a Military Sealift Atlantic Ocean 

Command support vessel. 

August 18, 2016 Following a routine strategic deterrence mission, a nuclear ballistic missile Strait of Juan de 

submarine and a Military Sealift Command support vessel collided. Fuca, 

Washington 

October 6, 2014 While proceeding outbound via Thimble Shoals Channel, a dock landing Virginia Capes, 

ship altided with a buoy Virginia 

February 12, 2014 A guided missile frigate ran aground while entering Samsun, Turkey, Samsun, Turkey 

10 

causing damage to the ship's P."Cr-'op:-e~lle~r~. --c--:-c--c-~----,;;-~--------;;-

November 16. 2013 An aerial target drone hit a guided missile cruiser during a training Southern 

January 17,2013 

October 13, 2012 

Apri118. 2012 

exercise. California 

A mine countermeasure ship ran aground while operating in the Sulu Sea, Sulu Sea, 

near Tubbataha Reef. Philippines 

A cruiser collided with a submarine off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. Near 

Jacksonvi!!e, 

Florida 

A Special Operations Craft collided with a civilian fishing boat, killing a Philippines 

local fishennan. 

1

0ffice of the Chief of Naval Operations Instruction 5102.10, Marine Corps Order 

P5102.1B, Navy and Marine Corps Mishap and Safety Investigation, Reporting, And 

Record Keeping Manual (Jan. 7, 2005) (Oct. 5, 2010, change transmittal2). A class A 

mishap also includes the destruction of a DOD aircraft. 

Page 22 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
90 

Source GAO analySIS of Navy data I GA0-17-798T 

Appendix II: Summary of Major Mishaps for 

Navy Ships at Sea for Fiscal Years 2009 

Through 2017, as of August 2017 

"The Navy refers to incidents where a ship coi!Jdes with a stationary object, such as a buoy or pier, as 

an allision 

0

The Navy defines a class A mishap as one that results in $2 million or more in damages to 

govemment or other property, or a mishap that resulted in a fatality or permanent total disability 

Note: The USS Lake Champlain collision with a South Korean fishing boat on May 9, 2017 is not 

classified as a class A mishap 

Page 23 GA0-17-798T Navy Readiness 
91 

Appendix Ill: Related GAO Products 

(102289) 

Report numbers with a C or RC suffix are Classified. Classified reports 

are available to personnel with the proper clearances and need to know, 

upon request 

Department of Defense: Actions Needed to Address Five Key Mission 

Challenges. GA0-17-369. Washington, D.C.: June 13,2017. 

Military Readiness: Coastal Riverine Force Challenges. GA0-17 -462C. 

Washington, D.C.: June 13, 2017. (SECRET) 

Navy Force Structure: Actions Needed to Ensure Proper Size and 

Composition of Ship Crews. GA0-17-413. Washington, D.C.: May 18, 

2017. 

Military Readiness: DOD's Readiness Rebuilding Efforts May Be at Risk 

without a Comprehensive Plan GA0-16-841 _ Washington, D.C.: 

September 7, 2016. 

Navy and Marine Corps: Services Face Challenges to Rebuilding 

Readiness. GA0-16-481RC. Washington, D.C .. May 25,2016. 

(SECRET//NOFORN) 

Military Readiness: Progress and Challenges in Implementing the Navy's 

Optimized Fleet Response Plan GA0-16-466R Washington, D.C.: May 

2, 2016. 

Navy Force Structure: Sustainable Plan and Comprehensive Assessment 

Needed to Mitigate Long-Term Risks to Ships Assigned to Overseas 

Homeports. GA0-15-329. Washington, D.C.: May 29, 2015. 

Military Readiness: Navy Needs to Assess Risks to Its Strategy to 

Improve Ship Readiness. GA0-12-887. Washington, D.C.: September 21, 

2012. 

Force Structure: Improved Cost lnfonnation and Analysis Needed to 

Guide Overseas Military Posture Decisions. GA0-12-711. Washington, 

D.C.: June 6, 2012. 

Military Readiness: Navy Needs to Reassess Its Metrics and 

Assumptions for Ship Crewing Requirements and Training. GA0-10-592. 

Washington, D.C.: June 9, 2010. 

Page 24 GA0~17-798T Navy Readiness 
92 

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94 

John H. Pendleton 

Mr. John H. Pendleton is Director, Force Structure and Readiness Issues, in the Defense 

Capabilities and Management Team at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

His portfolio examines how defense strategy is translated into force structure, how forces 

are kept ready, and how the military is postured around the world. Recent projects have 

included assessments of: DOD's readiness-rebuilding efforts and efforts to reduce 

headquarters; the Anny's processes to detennine its force structure; Air Force plans to 

divest the A-1 0 and shift structure to the reserve component; and the Navy's increased 

forward-deployment of ships and evolving fleet-response plans, among many others. His 

portfolio has also included regionally-focused efforts to address challenges posed by antiaccess environments in China and Iran; plans for Arctic capabilities; and military posture 

in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Mr. Pendleton hosts a speaker series on behalf of 

GAO that brings in experts from government and industry. He also leads planning efforts 

for GAO's defense team and teaches training courses related to leadership and report 

development. 

Mr. Pendleton assumed his current position in 2008 when he was appointed to the Senior 

Executive Service. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1987 and joined 

GAO that same year. He was posted to GAO's European Office from 1991-1995 where he 

focused on the post-Cold War drawdown of forces from Europe. Over his career, he has 

completed coursework at the Naval Postgraduate School, Army Command and General 

Staff College, and the National Defense University. He also has completed coursework at 

the Syracuse-Maxwell School, Harvard, Center for Creative Leadership, Aspen Institute 

and MIT's Seminar XXI. Mr. Pendleton has received numerous GAO awards including the 

Distinguished Service Award, Client Service Award, and the John Henry Luke Mentoring 

Award. 
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 

(97) 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. HUNTER 

Admiral MORAN. Commander Naval Surface Forces (CNSF) is currently evaluating the plan to replace these assets and ensure long-term multi mission capability 

across the Fleet. In the interim, GFM allocation will ensure we maintain the same 

capability and meet operational requirements within the Seventh Fleet AOR. The 

long term laydown of FDNF–J forces will be incorporated into the 2018 Strategic 

Laydown and Dispersal Plan (SLD 18). SLD18 is currently in development and is 

expected to be presented to Congress in March 2018. [See page 27.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLAGHER 

Admiral MORAN. In recent years, the Navy’s ability to meet COCOM demand has 

fluctuated between 40% and 45% of their requests for naval forces. For FY18, Navy 

will meet 44% of COCOM demand. While COCOM demands fluctuate from year to 

year, both overall and for class of ship, the trend over the last few years has been 

an increasing one. The Navy’s 2016 Force Structure Assessment determined a requirement for 355 ships, when measured with today’s platforms, as an acceptable 

level of risk. A larger fleet would be needed in order to fully meet all COCOM demands. [See page 39.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. NORCROSS 

Admiral MORAN. In the immediate aftermath of the collisions, the CNO directed 

the Navy to take an ‘‘operational pause’’ in all of its fleets around the world, to allow 

fleet commanders to assess and review with their commands the fundamental practice of safe and effective operations and to correct any areas that require immediate 

attention. This pause has been completed, with commanders incorporating deliberate processes in their operations to better manage risk. The following immediate 

actions are being undertaken to prevent another mishap.We have commenced Readiness for Sea Assessments (RFSA) for all ship assigned to Japan, to inspect and assess watchstander proficiency and material readiness to ensure ships are able to 

safely navigate, communicate and operate. Immediate remediation will be conducted 

for ships found deficient, and they will not be assigned for operational tasking until 

they are certified to be ready. 

• We have taken measures to ensure our Sailors get sufficient sleep in all shipboard routines to address fatigue concerns. 

• All material problems involving ship control have been given increased priority 

for repair. 

• To ensure SEVENTH Fleet ships are properly certified, the Pacific Fleet Commander is standing up Naval Surface Group Western Pacific (NSGWP) to consolidate authorities to oversee the training and certification of forward-deployed 

ships based in Japan. 

• We have commenced a review of certifications of each ship, to include developing a plan for each to regain currency and proficiency across all certification 

areas. All waivers for ships whose certification has expired will now be approved by the Pacific Fleet Commander. 

• We have increased focus across the force on open communication and thorough 

debriefing and assessment of operations and evolutions through instilling the 

practice of ‘‘Plan, Brief, Execute, Debrief’’ across commands. Other cultural 

changes include increasing unit-level operational pauses, increasing access to 

lessons learned, and encouraging time for repercussion free self-assessments. 

[See page 29.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 

(101) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON 

Mr. WILSON. Admiral Boxall, I understand that the U.S. Navy is developing advanced radar capabilities under a research, development, test, and evaluation program called ‘‘Next Generation Surface Search Radar’’. Such advanced capabilities 

would improve situational awareness for piloting and surface contact management, 

as well as for combat operations. As the Navy, the Committee on Armed Services 

in the House of Representatives, and other entities strive to address training and 

other requirements highlighted by the recent catastrophic collisions, it’s equally important that we provide our sailors and Marines with the best available radar technology to reduce watch team workload and the likelihood of human error; they need 

to be equipped with more integrated radar, navigation, and contact information for 

better situational awareness and decision-making. Therefore, please share with us 

the status of this Next Generation Surface Search Radar RDT&E program, including but not limited to considerations regarding future RDT&E requirements and 

funding. In addition, how will the Navy use this program to address radar upgrade 

requirements going forward? Please describe the U.S. Navy’s acquisition approach 

to this capability, as well as the status of any plans to field this capability within 

the surface fleet. 

Admiral BOXALL. The AN/SPS–73(X) Next Generation Surface Search Radar 

(NGSSR) upgrade leverages RDT&E work performed for a classified shore based 

system, as well as previous investments in Small Business Innovative Research 

(SBIR) technology for both the AN/SPS–74 periscope detection radar and AN/BPS– 

17 submarine navigation radar. The AN/SPS–73(X) NGSSR will update eighty-one 

AN/SPS–73(V)12 and sixty-seven AN/SPS–73A(V)12 systems to provide situational 

awareness and contact management, supporting ship self-defense, gun fire support, 

periscope detection and discrimination, remotely operated vehicle management, 

navigation, search and rescue, and electromagnetic maneuverability evolutions. 

Eliminating reliance on militarized commercial off the shelf transmitters, the 

NGSSR will be an all-digital multi-function high resolution radar with a solid state 

transmitter, which includes Automated Radar Plotting Aids (ARPA), fully programmable waveforms, and performance improvements over AN/SPS–73(V)12 and 

A(V)12, AN/SPS–67(V) variants and commercial navigation radars. The NGSSR acquisition approach (Items Less Than $5 Million; BLI 2980) leverages existing SBIR 

contracts with Ultra/3 Phoenix, Wake Forrest, NC, for NRE and follow-on initial 

production. PB18 includes funding for the procurement of 3 upgrade kits for qualification testing (land based, shock, vibration, environmental, etc.) in FY19. In FY20, 

12 production kits are planned to be procured for initial shipboard installation beginning in FY21. The initial units will support new construction installations as 

well as start to replace AN/SPS–73(V)12/(A)(V)12 systems on in-service surface combatants. PB18 supports continued procurement and installation of NGSSR throughout the FYDP. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. COURTNEY 

Mr. COURTNEY. Can you please provide us the total number of certifications that 

were expired on the USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain and what those specific certifications were? 

Admiral MORAN. USS Fitzgerald: At the time of the collision, expired certifications (14) included: Communications, Mobility-Air, Mobility-Engineering, MobilitySeamanship, Supply, Air Warfare, Ballistic Missile Defense, Cryptology, Electronic 

Warfare, Intelligence, Strike-Cruise Missile Tactical Qualification (CMTQ), StrikeNaval Surface Fire Support (NSFS), Surface Warfare, Undersea Warfare, Visit 

Board Search and Seizure. USS John S. McCain: At the time of the collision, expired certifications (10) included: Maintenance and Material Management (3M), 

Anti-terrorism, Fleet Support-Medical, Search and Rescue, Air Warfare, StrikeCMTQ, Strike-NSFS, Surface Warfare, Undersea Warfare, Visit Board Search and 

Seizure. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. McEACHIN 

Mr. MCEACHIN. How much discretion do current policies afford individual ship 

commanders with respect to the kind of choices that may have contributed to the 
102 

recent collisions? Are there best practices that are implemented on certain vessels, 

but not widely—for instance, requirements that watch bills reflect a) the biological 

reality of sailors’ circadian rhythms, and b) fact that human beings work best with 

the benefit of consistent sleep schedules? 

Admiral BOXALL. The Navy recognizes that its sailors, the men and women who 

crew our ships, are the critical enabler to warfighting. Ensuring they are healthy, 

fit and rested will make them more productive and effective during training and in 

combat. Over the past three years, (starting in May 13) CNSF promulgated guidance on Circadian Rhythm (CR) Watchbills intended to encourage the implementation of innovative shipboard watch rotations and daily routines that maximize the 

effectiveness of our watchstanders. In Jun 2016, CNSF promulgated Warfighting Serial Ten, focusing on warfighting—our people: ensuring they are healthy, fit and 

rested. CNSF has sponsored a series of interrelated studies on crew endurance and 

Sailor resilience undertaken by the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) which are receiving widespread attention throughout the Fleet. Since CNSF began promoting 

circadian rhythm in 2013, commanding officers have had the latitude to determine 

the most effective watchbills and shipboard routines to employ onboard their ships— 

circadian rhythm was a best practice shared with waterfront leaders and strongly 

encouraged. In the spring of 2017, CNSF queried the surface force regarding fatigue 

management, sleep and resilience and circadian rhythm watchbills to get feedback 

on how CNSF could help with fatigue management. The large majority of responses 

agreed that circadian rhythm was the best way to combat fatigue. Lessons were collected and shared. CNSF’s recent circadian rhythm direction, informed by NPS studies and fleet feedback, is an order and will be implemented by 20 Dec 2017. However, commanding officers have flexibility in how they execute circadian rhythm. Additionally, CNSF, working with NPS, is providing tools to the fleet to train leaders 

and Sailors on how to properly implement circadian rhythm best practices on their 

ships. The proper use of these shipboard routines and watchbills will provide 

watchstanders with a repetitive watch schedule that allows the body to establish a 

sleep pattern resulting in adequate rest and greater alertness on watch. 

Mr. MCEACHIN. How much discretion do current policies afford individual ship 

commanders with respect to the kind of choices that may have contributed to the 

recent collisions? Are there best practices that are implemented on certain vessels, 

but not widely—for instance, requirements that watch bills reflect a) the biological 

reality of sailors’ circadian rhythms, and b) fact that human beings work best with 

the benefit of consistent sleep schedules? 

Admiral MORAN. The Navy recognizes that its sailors, the men and women who 

crew our ships, are the critical enabler to warfighting. Ensuring they are healthy, 

fit and rested will make them more productive and effective during training and in 

combat. Over the past three years, (starting in May 13) CNSF promulgated guidance on Circadian Rhythm (CR) Watchbills intended to encourage the implementation of innovative shipboard watch rotations and daily routines that maximize the 

effectiveness of our watchstanders. In Jun 2016, CNSF promulgated Warfighting Serial Ten, focusing on warfighting—our people: ensuring they are healthy, fit and 

rested. CNSF has sponsored a series of interrelated studies on crew endurance and 

Sailor resilience undertaken by the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) which are receiving widespread attention throughout the Fleet. Since CNSF began promoting 

circadian rhythm in 2013, commanding officers have had the latitude to determine 

the most effective watchbills and shipboard routines to employ onboard their ships— 

circadian rhythm was a best practice shared with waterfront leaders and strongly 

encouraged. In the spring of 2017, CNSF queried the surface force regarding fatigue 

management, sleep and resilience and circadian rhythm watchbills to get feedback 

on how CNSF could help with fatigue management. The large majority of responses 

agreed that circadian rhythm was the best way to combat fatigue. Lessons were collected and shared. CNSF’s recent circadian rhythm direction, informed by NPS studies and fleet feedback, is an order and will be implemented by 20 Dec 2017. However, commanding officers have flexibility in how they execute circadian rhythm. Additionally, CNSF, working with NPS, is providing tools to the fleet to train leaders 

and Sailors on how to properly implement circadian rhythm best practices on their 

ships. The proper use of these shipboard routines and watchbills will provide 

watchstanders with a repetitive watch schedule that allows the body to establish a 

sleep pattern resulting in adequate rest and greater alertness on watch. 

Æ