Don’t Delay the Next Dual Buy of Carriers

It is time to buy and build the next two Gerald R. Ford–class aircraft carriers. CVN-82 and -83 are needed to maintain 11 aircraft carriers, but the Department of Defense (DoD) has programmed the next dual buy to occur in fiscal year (FY) 2030, creating a seven-and-a-half-year gap between the build of the Doris Miller (CVN-81) and the build of CVN-82, the first carrier of the next proposed buy. This will negate the economic advantage of a dual buy.   

While the law requires no fewer than 11 aircraft carriers, the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act put the Secretary of Defense in charge of all military procurement, including naval procurement.¹ At present, the Navy has 11 carriers: 10 Nimitz class and the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78). The John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) is to be delivered in 2025, but the Nimitz (CVN-68) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) will be decommissioned in 2026 and 2027, respectively. So, while the 2019 dual buy of Gerald R. Ford–class carriers kept pace with retirements, the Navy would need a new dual buy before the Dwight D. Eisenhower leaves the fleet to maintain 11 carriers.  

The FY25 National Defense Authorization Act provides the “sense of the Congress” regarding carrier procurement. It notes that while procurement of CVN-82 had been forecast for FY2028, the FY2025 plan defers that until FY2030, “creating a significant and destabilizing production gap for the aircraft carrier industrial base.” It then calls on the Secretary of Defense to “request procurement of the CVN-82 carrier not later than fiscal year 2028.” 

In terms of cost savings from block buys, the Congressional Research Service reported that for CVN-80 and CVN-81, the Navy estimated a dual buy would “reduce the cost of CVN-80 by about $900 million and the cost of CVN-81 by about $3.1 billion.”² Newport News Shipbuilding’s history with carrier builds suggests that if the builds are kept within 41 months, it increases the learning curve for workers and therefore can reduce engineering and construction man-hours. Indeed, a November 2018 DoD report to Congress stated the two-ship buy: 

assumes four years between ship deliveries, which allows more schedule overlap and therefore more shop-level and assembly-level production efficiencies than two single-ship buys. . . . The two-ship agreement with the shipbuilder achieves a 55 percent reduction in construction support engineering hours on CVN-81 and greater than 18 percent reduction in production support and planning hours compared to single ship procurements.³ 

Figure 1 is the history of Nimitz-class construction. Columns show construction man-hours in blue and design man-hours in orange (both in millions). For example, the first column is CVN-68, with 9.2 million man-hours for design and 34.4 million man-hours for construction. The box to the right of the column (29) is the number of months between completion of the build of CVN-68 and start of construction on CVN-69.   

The workers at Newport News shipyard—as well others in the Navy’s shipbuilding community and the naval officers and civil servants at Naval Sea Systems Command and at the Supervisor Office at Newport News—learned how to improve the design and construction of the Nimitz-class carriers with each iteration and applied that learning to reduce costs. Having the government side equally knowledgeable is critical when negotiating dual buys to certify the savings.   

In 1981, during construction of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), Congress provided Secretary of the Navy John Lehman money to negotiate building the rest of the Nimitz class in Newport News’ new North Yard.⁴ While that investment increased the cost of CVN-70 and CVN-71, it more than paid for itself with the savings from the dual buys of the Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and George Washington (CVN-73) and the John C. Stennis (CVN-74) and Harry S. Truman (CVN-75). Figure 1 shows the steady reduction in man-hours for those four carriers. Lehman demonstrated the value of dual buys, which became the preferred method for buying U.S. warships, not just aircraft carriers.    

In 1995, the Navy did a system-area analysis for carriers that found the Nimitz class was reaching its limits in electrical power, space, and weight. It was time to develop a new aircraft carrier, which meant DoD had to determine whether a new carrier could be built in time to replace CVN-77.  

DoD initially proposed an evolutionary development approach starting with CVN-77. But with the change of administration in 2001, Donald Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense for a second time and championed a “transformational approach” for the U.S. military. He put most of the new technologies for aircraft carriers on CVN-78 with the idea to put all the technology eggs in one basket and watch that basket. CVN-77, the last Nimitz-class carrier, became a modified repeat of the Nimitz class as a single authorized procurement that kept Newport News’ new-construction team busy.  

As it stands today, the dual buy for CVN-82 and CVN-83 is scheduled for FY2030, creating a seven-and-a-half-year gap between the build of CVN-81, the second carrier of the previous approved dual buy, and the build of CVN-82, the first of the next proposed dual buy.  

In addition, the dual buy for CVN-80 and CVN-81 occurred in 2019, before COVID-19. No doubt some of the experienced shipbuilders at Newport News shipyard, at Naval Sea Systems Command, and at the Navy’s Supervisor Office at Newport News retired in the midst of the pandemic. That might make the gap in shipbuilding experience even greater. 

The sooner the Secretary of Defense realizes the benefits of the next dual buy, the better. He should mind the gap, listen to the “sense of the Congress,” and get on with it. Waiting until 2030 is unacceptable.