Below is a brief explanation about the potential Enhanced Carrier Presence ECP plan, what it would mean for the upkeep of our fleet and most importantly—why you and your family should care. It is important to understand that while this plan has not yet been finalized, it would likely become reality and revolutionize how we train, maintain and deploy.
The current deployment plan organizes the training and maintenance of ships and aircraft in the CSG to conduct one deployment nominally seven months per month cycle; the CSG is thereafter available to deploy for contingencies for up to12 months. In recent years, emergent requests have forced us to surge CSGs, quickly re-deploying CSGs that had just returned from deployments.
These surge requests have a trickle-down effect that impacts all carrier schedules. A: It's important to understand ECP is still a plan that hasn't been finalized yet and a lot of the specifics are still pre-decisional. With that in mind, to support ECP, we're looking at extending the current FRTP cycle by four months, creating a month cycle, which would allow us to deploy ships twice for every training iteration.
Essentially, the cycle would look like this: six-months of maintenance, six-months training, one-month sustainment POM , seven-months deployed, seven-months sustainment, seven-months deployed, followed by two-months sustainment.
Rather than training the strike group each time before deployment, ECP incorporates training that would keep the CSG proficient throughout two deployments. Essentially, that means the Navy can deliver a set amount of overseas CSG presence and forego the need to surge and stress our force, except in the most extreme of contingencies. Q: An additional seven-month deployment, does that mean more money is required to fund ECP?
A: ECP is still a plan right now and it is not fully funded. By Diana Stancy Correll. About Geoff Ziezulewicz. More In Your Navy. America and its foes remain in the way of a landmine-free future: report The International Campaign to Ban Landmines has been issuing the report annually since A birthday toast to belligerent Marine commandant Anthony Gale, the only top officer ever fired Gale was found guilty on myriad charges following a six-day bender in the nation's capital.
Retired four-star tapped to lead Navy League think tank Retired Adm. James Foggo will be the inaugural head of the league's Center for Maritime Strategy. The length of the cycle has changed several times in the last two decades. Currently, the Navy uses a month cycle. Given one deployment per cycle, this has reduced the time a carrier is actually deployed but increased the amount of time it is able to surge. The Navy asked RAND to assess how differing cycles would affect the amount of time a ship is able to deploy or be deployed.
Given a fixed number of months for maintenance, deployments, and time between deployments consistent with personnel quality-of-life goals , Navy planners face a three-sided trade-off in setting ship schedules. They must balance goals of:. This is a zero-sum trade-off in which improving the ability to meet one goal can adversely affect the ability to meet the others see Figure 1.
Under the current month, one-deployment cycle, for example, in which both the deployment and maintenance periods typically last six months, a carrier is deployed 19 percent of the time, able to surge within 30 days 46 percent of the time and within days an additional 11 percent of the time, and in depot maintenance 24 percent of the time.
A shorter, month cycle would see a carrier deployed 31 percent of the time, able to surge within 30 days 15 percent of the time and within days 18 percent of the time, and in depot maintenance 36 percent of the time. A longer, month cycle featuring two 6-month deployments would see a carrier deployed 29 percent of the time, able to surge within 30 days 44 percent of the time and within days 9 percent of the time, and in maintenance 18 percent of the time. It is not clear, however, whether required depot maintenance can be completed in one 6-month period every three and a half years.
RAND researchers also assessed the technical feasibility of maintenance cycles of varying lengths. Prior to the current month cycle, Nimitz-class carriers operated on cycles of months. This suggests that shorter cycles, by offering more-frequent opportunities to accomplish depot work, are technically feasible.
Shorter cycles may also help in level-loading work at the shipyards, with more-frequent depot visits resulting in smaller work packages. Navy tried to limit deployments to six months to give crew members ample time for training and maintenance. After showing signs of improvement following two deadly collisions in , the Navy is again under pressure to provide aircraft carrier presence to the Middle East for the American regional force, U.
The Navy has called its current pace of operations unsustainable. Historically, long deployments with aging carriers create expensive logjams in public and private shipyards, where workers rush to fix equipment that was used in excess of what it was designed for.
Delays at shipyards mean longer deployments for the ships used for forward presence. The Biden administration has begun a global force posture review, like the Trump team, which also tried to pivot from heavy naval presence in the Middle East as a means of preserving forces for potential conflict in Europe or Asia.
In his confirmation hearing last month, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told senators that while he had spent most of his career thinking about the Middle East, his arrival at the Pentagon would bring with it a focus on China. During testimony in March , Central Command chief Gen. They track the presence of the carrier. Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who focuses on Middle East issues, said there is limited benefit in keeping the carrier in the region.
The U. Navy aircraft carrier Nimitz. Supply-based deployments.
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