US Navy in Serious Jeopardy of Falling Behind China in Shipbuilding & Naval Modernization

Video Above: How the US Navy Can Fast-Track Building 500 Warships:

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The Navy is stepping up its intensity with ongoing efforts to expand, maintain and modernize its national shipbuilding infrastructure, a development deemed quite essential by Pentagon leaders, weapons developers and members of Congress in order to keep pace with China.

Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program

The service is seeking to expedite its ongoing Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, a research and assessment effort intended to find avenues of improvement for shipyard productivity, scale, size and workforce capacity. The existence of this SIOP effort is in part based upon a candid recognition that the US Navy is in serious jeopardy of falling behind China when it comes to high-optempo shipbuilding and naval modernization overall.

“The challenges in shipyards are considerable, and it is a challenge brought on in part by the need for a proper workforce. We have added significant amounts of individuals, but the age of some of our shipyards is over 100-years old,” Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told the House Appropriations Committee, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in a 2023 budget hearing.

China is, for instance, already building its third and fourth aircraft carriers, plans to double its force of destroyers in coming years and is fast adding Type 075 amphibious assault ships, among other things. Leaders of the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition cite concerns that China’s shipyards are in some instances four times larger than those in the US.