The Navy this month will explain to Congress what it needs to keep its ship repair yards able and optimized to maintain modern warships.
A congressionally mandated naval shipyard optimization plan is due to the Hill this month, Navy maintenance leadership has told USNI News, with a companion plan regarding private shipyard investments also in the works by the service.
Commander of Naval Sea Systems Command Vice Adm. Tom Moore told USNI News in a December interview that the plan for the four public naval shipyards would include a “fairly significant investment over the course of about 20 years, $10 billion-plus” that includes upgrades to the drydocks, a redesign of the yards’ layouts to optimize the flow of people and material, and new equipment to maintain and modernize 21st Century warships. Among the Navy’s challenges is that the oldest yard, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, was built in 1800 and originally designed for ship construction; though the Navy has made piecemeal improvements over the decades, there hasn’t been a strategic, concerted effort to overhaul these public shipyards to meet the Navy’s current needs.
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Story by: Megan Eckstein | February 5, 2018