Eric Schmitt Asks Navy General About What Congress Can Do To Help 'Modernize' US Fleet

3 days ago

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) spoke about how Congress can help modernize the US Navy.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Senator Schmidt. Thank You Mr. Chairman. Admiral Kilby I want to direct this

00:06question to you. I feel like the fever has broke finally on this obsession that

00:12the previous administration had with with DEI. That's a good that's a good

00:15thing. The previous administration also treated climate change as a national

00:21security priority. I actually had one of the more ridiculous exchanges in my

00:24first couple years here with with Secretary del Toro who told me Admiral

00:28Nimitz would have cared about climate change too. It was sort of like the

00:33twilight zone. But we have we have issues right in in shipbuilding. Now that we're

00:40focused refocused on warfighting capability what should Congress do to

00:46prioritize modernizing the fleet as opposed to this political stuff? Two

00:51things are super important for us is to keep our maintenance going. Got to get

00:57our ships available. I'm not gonna build a whole mess of new ships in two years.

01:01So I've got to get the ships I have up to speed and available. The other thing

01:05we can do is continue to invest in munitions. I think the lead time for them

01:11is shorter than a ship so we must renew our magazines so we're ready to fight if

01:16called. Okay and then for sticking with you Admiral Kilby and then also for

01:21General Spain. If we had to fight a peer war in the next two years what would be

01:29our greatest capability gap and what should Congress do to address that? I'll

01:37start first again munitions. Long-range munitions preferred munitions are an

01:42area where we we need to increase our productivity as a nation and then from a

01:47just a general sense our capabilities are pretty good with the exception of

01:52that munitions quantity but our capacity is a problem. So getting those ships and

01:58funding available out on time will result in a greater capability overall.

02:05Senator thanks for the question. To your point in the next two years the

02:10greatest challenge for us is going to be regaining the sustainment edge in our

02:16current fleet. The lead time required for parts and supply over within that

02:21time frame required would require an infusion to help us with our aircraft

02:26availability our mission capable rates and training our flying force to be

02:31ready within that within that window. In addition some flexibility on new

02:37opportunities with technology in terms of asymmetric capabilities that would

02:41enable us to to to actually inculcate our force design which calls for both

02:47high-end exquisite capability paired with low-end low cost per effect massive

02:53capability that can augment the air component commanders who are in the

02:57field. Sounds like NGAD. Exquisite would be NGAD would be an example of the

03:03exquisite. Yes sir. General I guess with the time that I have remaining General

03:07Mingus and Mahoney just wanted to ask if sort of the similar theme of

03:11flexibility if if you had unrestricted funding for readiness how should that be

03:19spent first and to in order to get that high-end capability what what would we

03:28be doing it like if we're if we're in a if we're in an era of scarcity right

03:32that we have to accept at some level what is the what is the level of

03:35priority or what are the priorities? For for us I would say well the second one

03:40would be just what Admiral Kilby talked about our magazine depth precision

03:44guided munitions long-range precision fires and the ability to scale rapidly

03:48at time of crisis and conflict so it's one thing to bring production rates up

03:51but it's another to have the ability to to rapidly scale at time of crisis and

03:56conflict and the other would be support. Let me just how would you rate where

03:59we're at right now on that front because I've I've heard that I agree with that

04:02where do you think we're at with that? Well just using 155 as an example before

04:06the Russia-Ukraine conflict we were producing at 14,000 rounds a month we're

04:12now at we had a higher watermark in November of 42,000 ramping to 70 by this

04:17summer and 100k a month by this fall so that's a two-year journey we've got to

04:22be able to do that in months not years and it's it's about automation or

04:26robotics people are hard to bring in let go bring in let go and so the

04:32key to all this is automating those both organic and defense industrial systems

04:37and bases to be able to do that and then this the second place that I would put

04:43that money is in our transformation efforts that I described earlier our

04:47TIC 1.0 and 2.0 the end result of that infuse of technology into those

04:52formations is they're more lethal they're more agile they're lighter they

04:56can get to places much faster and they are just better formations that are

05:01designed purpose-built for the next fight not the last fight. Senator if I

05:08had a three three-part wish list the first one would be to accelerate our

05:12force design to ensure victory and more killing power in the contact layer I

05:18agree completely with depth of magazine across people parts programs there's

05:23several things that we don't have enough of that we need to build more and deepen

05:26that if anything what Ukraine what the Levant what the Houthis show us is that

05:32the short sharp illusion is just that a short sharp illusion we need to shoot we

05:36need to be able to take a hit we need to reset and get back in the fight secondly

05:40our force gen platforms are in specifically our barracks for our

05:46Marines if we're going to count on them to generate a lethal force we've got to

05:49provide them the quality of life and the living conditions that they rate and

05:54thirdly and we've already talked about it extensively is the ability for us to

05:58move maneuver and sustain on 73% of the earth's surface that's amphibious

06:03shipping and project power from sovereign American soil when we do that

06:08as well as organic littoral maneuver in order to move shore to shore in order to

06:14maneuver to a position of advantage in order to sustain in the contact layer

06:18thank you thank you mr.

Eric Schmitt Asks Navy General About What Congress Can Do To Help 'Modernize' US Fleet

Category

Transcript

Recommended