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...is dropping.

Hallelujah!

https://www.tradewindsnews.com/shipyards/trump-bud...

A budget proposal by US President Donald Trump will contain what is described as the largest government ship order package since World War II.

Scheduled to be released on Friday, it will contain $65.8bn in orders for the US Navy alone, with the vessel proposals spanning both warships and non-combat ships, a spokesperson for the White House budget office told TradeWinds.

Booyah! What's in this package?

The OMB proposal includes funding for 18 ships in the navy’s battle force, the spokesperson said.

It will also include another 16 non-battle force ships, such as hospital ships, submarine tenders, oilers and roll-on, roll-off ships known as strategic sealift vessels.

In a major departure, the US is looking to existing commercial designs for many of these vessels, a move that would allow more shipyards to get in the game at lower costs.

It's great to have a load of ships of the line, but you need almost as many logistics ships to keep the engine running...especially if your focus is the Pacific Ocean, as it is with the present administration.

Great to see a) we get that and b) we're looking for ways to get hulls in the water faster.

Now let's re-vamp the Hawaii fuel depots around Pearl Harbor.

How many of them are heli-carriers?

I want some heli-carriers.

Now let's re-vamp the Hawaii fuel depots around Pearl Harbor.

I don’t see the Chinese making the same mistake that Japan did.

I don’t see the Chinese making the same mistake that Japan did.

We need forward refueling points for ships and Hawaii should be a major fuel hub like it was before. Environmental concerns have led us to shut down a number of facilities there:

https://www.epa.gov/red-hill/closure

This might be something that gets overturned.

...is dropping.

Hallelujah!

How much of that order is for things the Navy actually needs?

Don’t get me started on procurement policies- I think I pretty much agree with you there.

That “Golden Fleet” program seems more and more like a Trump vanity project and it takes a large hunk of that budget. But does the Navy need it, and is it simply “the concept of a plan”?

Seeking to work with civilian shipbuilders is good, but I fear Trump is insinuating himself into the process of ship design, and what we end up with could be worse than what we saw with some of the littoral ship programs and even worse than what happened with the first in class USS Ford.

Mara Lago or Trump Tower- the maritime edition.

How many will actually be built, and be useful? Given the track record of DOD/WD procurement, over the last 20+ years, the expectation should probably be another great sukky sound.

Steve

Hawaii should be a major fuel hub like it was before.

Perhaps. But the facility was a major threat to the water sources AND the military base. So it had to be shut down. Kind of hard to have a NAVAL base with no usable water.

How much of that order is for things the Navy actually needs?

All of it :)

Here's the best info I can find on it:

https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/what-are-the-...

I thought by now I’d find a “Ref. A” for those numbers, but no joy. So, I reached out to a real professional and friend to the blog (who will remain on the DL) for some help. Trust me on this—if anyone can figure it out, he can.

Even he admits that it’s hard to find the numbers. The biggest issue is that the only budget document for ships we can get ahold of right now is the Department of War’s Procurement Programs (P-1) Brief for fiscal year 2027.

Here we go. The battle force ship list is below. I've added the ship class for each:

1 x Columbia SSBN (Columbia, obviously)

2 x SSN (Virginia class nuclear fast attack submarine)

1 x DDG-51 (Arleigh Burke class destroyer)

1 x FF(X) (the Navy's version of the Coast Guard's Legend class cutter)

1 x LHA (America class, essentially a light aircraft carrier)

1 x LPD (San Antonio class amphibious transport dock. You just saw one of these (USS John P. Murtha pick up the Artemis spacecraft)

1 x T-AGOS SURTASS (New Explorer class. These ships carry massive towed array sonar for ASW purposes)

2 x T-AO (Fleet replenishment oilers)

2 x T-AS(X) (Submarine tenders)

6 x LSMs (Landing ship, medium)

All very useful stuff...for Pacific Ocean operations. This stuff plus the stuff below is how you move Marines around.

The non-battle force list:

1 x special mission ship of unknown capability

1 x strategic sealift (new)

4 x ship-to-shore connectors (LCAC 100 class, a really big hovercraft)

2 x LCAC SLEPS

1 x bulk fuel vessel

5 x fireboats

1 x sealift vessel (used)

1 x T-AH (Hospital ship)

Freaking. Cool.
Finally someone in DC is paying attention to what the surface Navy actually needs.

Finally someone in DC is paying attention to what the surface Navy actually needs.

I'll agree to a point. Yes, useful stuff. Though a new Arleigh Burke is not optimal. They need to get their fingers out of their butts, and finish the DDG(x). China and DPRK are fielding next-gen destroyers as we speak, and our government can't seem to get anything through the design phase. Not entirely the Felon's fault...it's been floundering for at last 10 years, as I recall.

The subs we certainly are getting right. We seem to do that well.

The frigate is a sad story of multiple incompetences resulting in the scrapping of the new ship, and adapting an existing hull. It might be better to buy the South Korean FFX hulls. By all reports, they're pretty good.

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