THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 3, 1997 TAG: 9702030028
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 141 lines
The Pentagon's 1998 budget proposal apparently promises steady work to Hampton Roads shipbuilders while offering an exciting, if uncertain, picture of the future to local Navy and Air Force pilots and air crews.
But congressional and military sources caution that the spending program, which will be formally unveiled late this week along with five-year budget projections, will leave the long-term shape and size of the armed forces unclear.
Particularly questionable, they suggest, are the continued development of next-generation fighter jets for the Air Force and Navy.
Both the Navy's F/A-18 ``Super Hornet'' and the Air Force's F-22 have come under fire from congressional analysts who suggest the planes are too expensive and unnecessary to maintain American air superiority around the world.
The 1,000-plane Super Hornet program is expected to cost about $83 billion, including design and development costs. The Air Force wants 438 of the radar-evading F-22s at a total program cost of around $70 billion.
Both jets are years away from operational use; the Super Hornet got its initial tests aboard a carrier just last month, and the first F-22 is scheduled to come off the assembly line later this year.
Each plane is being designed as a successor to fighter jets now based in Hampton Roads. Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach is soon to be the Navy's principal East Coast facility for the F/A-18C/D, the Super Hornet's smaller predecessor; Langley Air Force Base in Hampton is a major base for the F-15, the fighter the F-22 is to replace.
For local shipbuilders, the budget is expected to provide new details of a budding cooperative venture by Newport News Shipbuilding and a rival Connecticut shipyard to develop a new generation of attack submarines.
The plan calls for the ships to be built in sections, like links of a sausage, with each yard responsible for particular links.
A senior Navy official said last week that the Connecticut builder, Electric Boat, is expected to serve as the Navy's lead contractor for the new subs; current plans call for it to be responsible for developing their command and control sections, nuclear reactors and engine rooms.
Newport News, meanwhile, is to build the bow and stern sections of each sub, along with the sail, the tower-like structure that traditionally houses the ship's periscope.
Construction on the first of the new subs is to begin next year. The ships are being designed by Electric Boat.
While the arrangement gives Newport News less submarine work than the yard and its congressional allies secured in an earlier shipbuilding plan, the Pentagon is expected to salve that wound by taking a small first step toward satisfying the yard's top priority: construction of a new aircraft carrier.
In private meetings last month, top Navy and Pentagon officials assured Virginia congressmen and senators that the budget will provide for some research and development during 1998 for the carrier, the last scheduled ship in the giant Nimitz class.
The $5 billion ship is now expected to get its first major appropriation - about $1 billion, to buy a nuclear reactor - in 2000. The Pentagon would seek funds to actually build the ship in 2002.
Newport News has a monopoly on carrier contracts.
Overall, the '98 defense budget is expected to call for about $260 billion in spending during the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. That's roughly $1 billion more than the Clinton administration had projected, but still $6 billion less than Congress provided for 1997.
Developed under the supervision of former Defense Secretary William J. Perry - new Pentagon boss William Cohen took office just over a week ago - the budget reportedly will continue Perry's emphasis on maintaining a high level of combat readiness throughout the military.
The Perry policy requires the Pentagon to spend most of its budget to continually train and supply U.S. troops, leaving relatively little - $44 billion in the current budget - to develop weapons.
Cohen told reporters Friday that he is committed to increasing the weapons budget, but suggested any major effort in that direction will have to wait another year.
The Pentagon is in the midst of a quadrennial review of all its forces; with a report due in May to answer such questions as how many missiles, planes, tanks, Army divisions, Navy carriers and other ships really are needed to defend the U.S. and project American power abroad.
The budget may foreshadow the outcome of that review by recommending modest cuts in troop levels in order to save money that can be applied toward new weapons. The Navy, for example, is expected to recommend cutting an additional 5,000 uniformed positions, giving it a total strength of 395,000.
In interviews last week, senior Navy officials disputed reports that the budget will recommend larger reductions in ship manning, including a cut from 5,000 to 3,500 in the number of people assigned to carriers.
The service hopes a new generation of carriers, to begin service sometime after 2010, will be smaller and able to operate with fewer people than the Nimitz class ships now in use, one official said.
The destroyer Yorktown, based in Norfolk until recently, has been designated as the Navy's first ``smart ship'' and is experimenting with new mechanical and computer systems, as well as staffing policies, designed to test whether future ships can be designed to operate with smaller crews.
The official said the Navy hopes to put lessons learned on the Yorktown to work in designing a post-Nimitz carrier and other ships, in particular a missile-laden ``arsenal ship'' now expected to debut in 1999.
The arsenal ship is to be the most heavily armed vessel in history, with 500 or more missile tubes and a three-layered hull engineered to protect it against torpedo attacks. The Navy plans to man the ship with a crew of no more than 50, using computers and guidance systems on other ships to launch the missiles and steer them toward targets ashore or in the air. ILLUSTRATION: THE PENTAGON'S 1998 BUDGET PROPOSAL
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An emphasis on combat readiness
The 1998 defense budget, to be released this week, reportedly
will emphasize combat readiness, leaving relatively little for the
development of new weapons. However, Defense Secretary William Cohen
says he is committed to increasing the weapons budget in the future.
The '98 budget is expected to call for about $260 billion in
spending during the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. That's about $1
billion more than the Clinton administration had projected, but $6
billion less than Congress provided for 1997.
Ships: outlook good
The budget is expected to provide research funds for a new
aircraft carrier in the Nimitz class (pictured left). The budget
also is expected to call for Newport News Shipbuilding to build
sections of new attack subs with a rival Connecticut shipyard.
Aircraft: outlook uncertain
Questionable are development funds for the Navy's F/A-18 ``Super
Hornet'' (pictured left) and the Air Force's F-22. Each would be a
successor to local-based fighter jets: the Navy's F/A-18C/D at
Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, and the F-15 at Langley
Air Force Base in Hampton.
What's next?
The defense budget, which constitutes a portion of President
Clinton's overall budget, is ultimately a wish list that he will
present to Congress this week. Clinton now has the added weapon of a
line-item veto, which will let him reject portions without derailing
the entire budget once is it approved by Congress. So far, both are
striking a conciliatory tone, in contrast with the confrontation
that shut down the government two budgets ago.
KEYWORDS: NAVY BUDGET