Defense & Intelligence Policy, Business and Technology

The US Navy will have to pony up and race the clock to avoid a sealift capacity collapse

Defense News: The U.S. surge sealift fleet, the ships needed to help transport up to 90 percent of the Army’s and Marine Corps’ gear by sea if the U.S. had to fight a war against a great power, will be facing a full-blown modernization crisis by the end of the 2020s if the Navy can’t arrest its decline, according to a Navy report sent to Congress earlier this year.

The sealift fleet, already hampered by rising maintenance costs and personnel shortages, will begin to dip below what the Defense Department has determined is its required capacity starting in the early 2020s. But the force will start a precipitous decline as the bulk of the Ready Reserve Force ships hit their 50-year service lives starting in 2028.

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