The U.S. Navy Is Backing Away From Its 355-Ship Plan

Warzone/The Drive: The Navy Is Backing Away From Its 355-Ship Plan, Has Invested Too Much In Too Few Hulls

Navy officials are increasingly looking at distributed fleets of lower-cost ships with a heavy emphasis on unmanned platforms.

The U.S. Navy appears to be backing away from an extremely ambitious plan that emerged earlier this year to reach the goal of a fleet with 355 ships within the next 15 years. The service's senior leadership has said that, unless their budget increases dramatically, they are looking at a fleet of between 305 and 310 ships in the near-to-mid-term. They say they will have also have to find a way to drive down the costs of buying and operating vessels, including focusing more on unmanned vessels, to realize real growth beyond the current 290-ship fleet after years of spending increasingly more on fewer ships.

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Update: Navy admiral: A 355-ship Navy may not be attainable (UPI)

WNU Editor: The money is just not there.