I will not comment on the littoral panel because you certainly have covered that area well. I also want to commend you for identifying ship recapitalization for the Navy as an issue worthy of separate consideration by the Subcommittee during our hearing process this year.

Mr. Chairman, for years now, I have been concerned about the chronic mismatch between the size of the Navy that will result from planned ship procurements and the size of the Navy called for in our national strategy.

As you well-know, I have been outspoken in sounding the alarm. Today, I am told that future years' defense plan before us would redress this chronic mismatch that I, along with others, have been heard.

So, why am I still concerned? The future years' defense plan before us today is characterized as sufficient to maintain the Navy Fleet at about 300 ships; enough for the current strategy.

The problem is that this apparent equilibrium is a short-term peculiarity and very perishable. It occurs simply because we have young ships in the fleet today and plan to buy inexpensive ships in the future years' defense plan.

The real challenge in maintaining the right size and right kind of fleet for the Navy will occur in the 2010 and beyond time frame. Moreover, because it mask the problem, this budget may actually make the situation worse.

Mr. Chairman, you do not have to take my word as a cause to remain concerned. You will find on close reading of Mr. Ron O'Rourke's authoritative statement that he is clearly and convincingly the definitive expert on the subject of Navy ship recapitalization.

I thank you and look forward to today's testimony.

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman from Virginia, who really is an expert in this area, and has focused this Subcommittee very strongly on the crisis that attends these times.

We are going to have to conclude today's hearing by 3:00 p.m. Therefore, I want to ask the witnesses to keep their remarks brief. If there are no objections, the prepared statements of everybody, along with any accompanying materials you might attach to them will be included into the record.

Mr. Gerry, the floor is yours, followed by Rear Admiral Mullen, then General Krupp, and General Select Huly.

The floor is yours.

STATEMENT OF HON. DALE F. GERRY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY FOR MINE WARFARE PROGRAMS (RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ACQUISITION)

Secretary GERRY. Thank you, Chairman Hunter, Mr. Sisisky, and distinguished members of the Procurement Subcommittee.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to appear before you today to discuss Ship Self-Defense Programs for countering underwater threats to our Naval Forces. I will address programs that provide a defense against sea mines and torpedoes.

Our ability to counter these threats enables U.S. Naval Forces to influence events ashore through sustained maritime dominance. I

would first like to address our programs to counter the sea mine threat.

Today, our mine countermeasures capability is provided by a superb mix of dedicated forces that consist of mine countermeasures ships, Airborne Mine Countermeasures Helicopters, a mine warfare command ship, and Navy Special Operations Forces.

The Navy is committed to maintaining the readiness of these forces. It continues to pursue initiatives for improving current systems, as well as developing systems where we have capability shortfalls.

Since Desert Storm, the Navy has made a significant investment resulting in improvements to our mine countermeasures capability. Twenty of our 26 mine countermeasures ships and the USS Inchon, the command and support ship, have been delivered to the Fleet since then.

We have also improved the Navy's overall ability to respond to the sea mine threat by permanently forward deploying two MC-1 class ships to the Arabian Gulf, and home forwarding another two ships in Japan.

We have also addressed shortfalls in both the very shallow water region and the surf zone by first establishing a Very Shallow Water mine countermeasures attachment that provides a rapidly deployable force to accomplish missions in 40- to 10-feet water depth.

Second, developing systems to clear mines and obstacles in the 10- to 0-feet water depth. Additionally, we are implementing an Organic Mine Warfare Vision that will mainstream mine countermeasures systems into Battle Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs).

They will be integrated, both physically and doctrinally, into all Navy Joint Task forces, eliminating the exclusive reliance on dedicated mine countermeasure forces.

This organic capability will provide the Battle Groups the ability to respond to the sea mine threat with sensors and weapons embedded in our deployed forces.

It will be a systems of systems approach that will include seven signature programs that will be in our air, surface, and sub-surface components. This air capability, currently in the MH-53E Helicopter, will transition to the CH-60S Sierra, consistent with the Navy's strategy to reduce type, model, and series aircraft.

This helicopter will be deployed in our Battle Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups. It will be equipped with five systems to detect and destroy moored and bottom mines in both shallow and deeper water.

Additionally, both the surface force and the submarine force will be provided systems to accomplish mine war field reconnaissance. I believe you can see from my remarks today that the Navy is moving forward smartly in the commitment to provide a defense against a sea mine threat.

We are maintaining the readiness of the dedicated force and have initiated the programs to provide an organic capability to the Fleet by 2005. I can guarantee you that these efforts are also being closely watched by the Secretary of Defense.

Just this past January, Secretary Cohen provided guidance to the Navy to:

(1) fence the Mine Warfare Funding Program until the organic vision has been achieved;

(2) ensure that the readiness of the existing dedicated force is not jeopardized to pay for the organic capability; and

(3) continue to match resources to requirements.

I would now like to address ship self-defense against the torpedo threat. Today, surface ship torpedo defense is provided by a variety of systems because there is no one universal solution to the threat. The most widely used method of torpedo defense makes use of decoys to confuse an incoming homing torpedo and evasive maneuvers by the ship under attack. Virtually any ship in the Navy's inventory today has the capability to tow our basic decoy system, the NIXIE

Beyond this basic tow decoy, we have developed a Launch Decoy System that will deliver to the Fleet later this year. We have an enhanced self-propelled version of this system in early development.

These more advanced decoys will be used in conjunction with torpedo detection systems that alert ship operators to all incoming torpedo threat. The Navy also has an effort underway to create a hard kill torpedo countermeasure that will physically destroy an incoming torpedo.

We are also continuing a broad-based research and development effort in torpedo defense to cover other shortfall areas. This year, the Congress provided an additional $5 million for surface-ship computer defense efforts that we will be using:

(1) to development enhancements to the NIXIE System to make it more effective in the littoral environment;

(2) to evaluate and make recommendations for torpedo defense for our large deck ships; and

(3) to conduct a demonstration of the mobile decoy I mentioned earlier.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, I believe we have provided torpedo defense capabilities that will address the full range of torpedoes. We know that the ultimate criteria for torpedo defense success are for the crew and ship to survive and complete their mission.

Our investment plan improves our capability and we are working toward the objective of the complete defensive capability.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I will be ready to answer any questions when you are.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Gerry can be found in the Appendix on page 260.]

Mr. HUNTER. Good. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Admiral.

STATEMENT OF REAR ADM. MICHAEL G. MULLEN, DIRECTOR OF SURFACE WARFARE DIVISION (N86), U.S. NAVY Admiral MULLEN. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Sisisky, distinguished members of this Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss littoral warfare and the surface Navy's readiness to meet the threats of the future.

While our focus today is on procurement, I want to stress that we need to continue to invest in our most important resource, our

people. The initiatives in the President's budget which speak to the compensation triad are extremely important, as is the targeted bonus money for the first time for our young surface warfare offi

cers.

Your continuing support for our men and women in uniform is vital and greatly appreciated. The surface Navy has dramatically realigned its resources to focus on those programs which will allow the Navy to influence events ashore.

The backbone of our surface Navy is our great Aegis Fleet. As a recent Battle Group Commander who operated in the Gulf last year with the USS George Washington, I can attest to the fact that operating in the littoral poses an enormously complex war fighting challenge.

I am concerned with the threat of mines, submarines, and missiles. I am also concerned about the greatly reduced response times required of ships commanders; seconds rather than minutes. I have three major mission areas in my current job that I focus on: maritime dominance, land attack, and theater air defense.

Maritime dominance is the pre-condition for conducting land attack and theater air defense. The future requires us to move away from platform-centric warfare to network-centric warfare.

This will allow our combatants to combine their strengths to real-time data links such as Combat Direction Center. To counter potential threats in the littoral, new self-defense systems are under development, including hard kill systems, like the Rolling Airframe Missile and the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile, as well as soft kill systems, such as the Advanced Integrated Electronic Warfare System, and the Nulka Decoy System.

We are pursuing a two-prong strategy in undersea warfare. First, we are planning on providing our combatants with an organic mine hunting capability. Not every combatant will have this capability, but each Battle Group will.

Second, our Anti-Submarine Warfare Systems will employ multistatic and bi-static acoustics, improvements in ships torpedo defensive systems, continued support of an embarked SH-60 helicopter program, and improved surface launched torpedoes, such as the Mark 54 light weight hybrid torpedo.

From this foundation of maritime dominance, the surface Navy will stand poised to execute theater air dominance and land attack. The two facets of the theater air dominance, about which I am most concerned, are defeating the Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles and providing theater ballistic missile defense.

To accomplish this, we are improving our Aegis Weapon System and its tremendous spy radar. We are evolving our extremely successful standard missile. Sea-based theater ballistic missile defense can provide flexible deterrence and war winning leverage independent of host nation support.

Success in our mission of land attack means offensive, longrange, responsive, and lethal precise fires, not previously resident in our surface combatants.

The Navy currently has acquisition programs which will produce a five inch, 62 gun for Aegis ships capable of delivering a rocketassisted projectile to an objective range of 63 nautical miles, and

an advanced gun system for DD-21 to an objective range of nearly 100 nautical miles.

I would like to comment briefly on Force structure. Numbers count. Today, the stated requirement is for a Navy of 305 ships in 2005. I was delighted to see the additional eight ships in the President's budget.

It is a beginning. Six to eight ships per year will not sustain the minimum essential force levels for a 300 ship Navy. You must be there to have an impact. You must have numbers to be there.

In the surface Navy, we are evolving our current Forces. The USS Winston S. Churchill, the EG-81 will christen in Bath, Maine on the 17th of April and commission in 2001.

She will be the fist DDG with our new gun and its long range munitions. She will incorporate the organic mine hunting capability, and the introduction of an area-wide theater ballistic missile defense capability.

In order to preserve the relevance of our cruiser Force, our Aegis Cruiser Force, we are pursuing a program called the Cruiser Conversion.

This will modernize these ships to address the TBMD threat, as well as contributing to the land attack and self-defense missions. Their service life will be extended, which is a must in these times of diminishing numbers of ships.

Last, Mr. Chairman, I want to say how proud I am of every member of this team. I am blessed to be able to visit many of our defense contractor partners in this endeavor.

I am always overjoyed in meeting the proud Americans, from all over our country, who build superb systems for Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines to take into combat.

I am equally thankful for the support you and this great Subcommittee routinely give the Navy. I look forward to working with you in any way I can to continue to improve our Nation's defense. Thank you for the time and the privilege of addressing you today. I stand ready to respond to your questions, sir.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Mullen can be found in the Appendix on page 275.]

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you Admiral. General.

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. DENNIS T. KRUPP, DIRECTOR OF EXPEDITIONARY WARFARE DIVISION, U.S. MARINE CORPS General KRUPP. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Sisisky, and distinguished members of this Subcommittee. Thank you for affording me the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon to discuss power projection and Force protection, as it pertains to littorals.

Before I begin, I would like to reiterate that I am a member of the staff and today I am representing the Chief of Naval Operations.

I was a Marine, and as the Director of the Expeditionary Warfare, getting the Forces to the fight, possessing the prerequisite lift to accomplish that mission, and in protecting those forces, those are my priorities.

I would like to take a moment to talk to you about three areas of expeditionary warfare:

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