Navy's future fleet's price tag grows 5-10%, despite ship mix not changing: CBO - Breaking...

A new independent analysis of the Navy’s long-range shipbuilding plan indicates the projected price of the service’s future fleet will be 5 to 10 percent higher than the same watchdog’s previous estimates, despite the mix of ships remaining mostly the same, with the prime culprit the rising price of producing submarines.

Those conclusions come from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which today published its analysis of the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan, a routine assessment mandated by lawmakers. The agency on Wednesday also published a broader assessment of the Pentagon’s 2024 future years defense program.

As it did in 2023, the Navy this year submitted three different profiles for its future fleet. The first two options are based around flat or declining defense budgets, while the third option assumes a growing shipbuilding account. While the service’s current fleet size is roughly 290, the Navy’s first plan would result in a fleet of 319 ships by 2053; the second in a fleet of 328 vessels; and the third in 367 ships.

The watchdog concluded that the least expensive of the three plans would cost $906 billion over a 30-year period, while the most expensive would be $979 billion over three decades. The Navy meanwhile generated cost estimates between $776 billion and $842 billion.

By comparison, CBO’s estimates for the fiscal year 2023 plan ranged between $825 billion and $908 billion, while the Navy’s were between $710 billion and $786 billion.