Navy Chasing North Star of 75 Available Surface Ships
3/14/2024
By Sean Carberry
USS Manchester and Formidable-class stealth frigate RSS Tenacious (right)
Navy photo
While the Navy, Defense Department and Congress continue to debate how many ships the Navy needs — with assessments ranging from some 290 to 380 manned ships — the service has set a “North Star” of always having 75 of its surface vessels mission-ready.
Yet reaching even that target is a tall order for a service struggling with shortages of spare parts, maintenance capacity and people.
During a January 2023 call with reporters, then-Commander of Naval Surface Forces and Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener outlined the roughly two-year initiative, which would ensure a little less than half the Navy’s 165 surface ships — destroyers, cruisers, littoral combat ships, counter-mine ships and various amphibious ships — are maintained and manned for deployment.
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/3/14/navy-chasing-north-star-of-75-available-surface-ships
