he Navy wants to procure a total of 13 LPD-17 Flight II amphibious ships. LPD-17 Flight II ships cost roughly $1.8 billion each to procure. The first LPD-17 Flight II ship, LPD-30, was procured in FY2018. As part of its action on the Navy's proposed FY2019 budget, Congress provided $350 million in unrequested advance procurement (AP) funding for a second LPD-17 Flight II ship, LPD-31, to be procured in FY2020. This was consistent with the Navy's FY2019 budget submission, under which LPD-31 was planned for procurement in FY2020 and the remainder of its procurement cost was to be requested in FY2020. The Navy's FY2020 budget submission, however, proposes deferring the procurement of LPD-31 by one year, to FY2021, and the Navy's proposed FY2020 budget, rather than requesting the remainder of LPD-31's procurement cost, instead requests $247.1 million in AP funding for the ship. Navy officials state that if no LPD-17 Flight II ship is procured in FY2020, the $350 million in FY2019 AP funding that Congress provided for the LPD-17 program would become unexecutable, because that funding was provided specifically for use in building an LPD-17 Flight II ship procured in FY2020, not an LPD-17 Flight II ship procured in FY2021. The $350 million in FY2019 AP funding can be made executable by procuring LPD-31 in FY2020 or by passing legislation permitting the FY2019 AP funding to be used for an LPD-17 Flight II ship procured in FY2021. One alternative for procuring LPD-31 in FY2020 would be to do so with full funding (i.e., with the remainder of the ship's procurement cost provided in FY2020). Another alternative would be to pass legislation giving the Navy the authority to procure LPD-31 in FY2020 using incremental funding. Navy officials state that under the latter alternative, the amount of procurement funding needed for LPD-31 in FY2020 would be, at a minimum, roughly $200 million, and not more than the requested amount of $247.1 million.

The Navy wants to procure a total of 13 LPD-17 Flight II amphibious ships. LPD-17 Flight II ships cost roughly $1.8 billion each to procure. The first LPD-17 Flight II ship, LPD-30, was procured in FY2018. As part of its action on the Navy's proposed FY2019 budget, Congress provided $350 million in unrequested advance procurement (AP) funding for a second LPD-17 Flight II ship, LPD-31, to be procured in FY2020. This was consistent with the Navy's FY2019 budget submission, under which LPD-31 was planned for procurement in FY2020 and the remainder of its procurement cost was to be requested in FY2020. The Navy's FY2020 budget submission, however, proposes deferring the procurement of LPD-31 by one year, to FY2021, and the Navy's proposed FY2020 budget, rather than requesting the remainder of LPD-31's procurement cost, instead requests $247.1 million in AP funding for the ship. Navy officials state that if no LPD-17 Flight II ship is procured in FY2020, the $350 million in FY2019 AP funding that Congress provided for the LPD-17 program would become unexecutable, because that funding was provided specifically for use in building an LPD-17 Flight II ship procured in FY2020, not an LPD-17 Flight II ship procured in FY2021. The $350 million in FY2019 AP funding can be made executable by procuring LPD-31 in FY2020 or by passing legislation permitting the FY2019 AP funding to be used for an LPD-17 Flight II ship procured in FY2021. One alternative for procuring LPD-31 in FY2020 would be to do so with full funding (i.e., with the remainder of the ship's procurement cost provided in FY2020). Another alternative would be to pass legislation giving the Navy the authority to procure LPD-31 in FY2020 using incremental funding. Navy officials state that under the latter alternative, the amount of procurement funding needed for LPD-31 in FY2020 would be, at a minimum, roughly $200 million, and not more than the requested amount of $247.1 million.

The LPD-17 Flight II program, previously known as the LX(R) program, is a program to build 13 new amphibious ships for the Navy. The Navy had planned to procure the first LPD-17 Flight II ship in FY2020. Congress, as part of its action on the Navy's proposed FY2018 budget, accelerated the procurement of the first LPD17 Flight II ship to FY2018. Within a Navy shipbuilding program, the term flight refers to a group of ships built to a particular design version. The LPD-17 Flight II ships are to constitute the second version of the Navy's San Antonio (LPD-17) class amphibious ship design. Compared to the original (i.e., Flight I) LPD-17 design, the Flight II design is somewhat less expensive and in some ways less capable. In many other respects, the LPD-17 Flight II design is similar in appearance and capabilities to the LPD-17 Flight I design. The Flight II design was developed to meet Navy and Marine Corps operational requirements while staying within a unit procurement cost target established by the Navy. A total of 13 LPD-17 Flight I ships (LPDs 17 through 29) were procured between FY1996 and FY2017. The final two Flight I ships (LPDs 28 and 29) incorporate some design changes that make them transitional ships between the Flight I design and the Flight II design. The LPD-17 Flight II ship procured in FY2018 will be designated LPD-30, and subsequent ships will be designated LPD-31, LPD-32, and so on. Whether the LPD-17 Flight II ships constitute their own shipbuilding program or an extension of the original LPD-17 shipbuilding program might be a matter of perspective. As a matter of convenience, this CRS report refers to the Flight II shipbuilding effort as a program. Years from now, LPD-17 Flight I and Flight II ships might be referred to collectively as either the LPD-17 class, the LPD-17/30 class, or the LPD-17 and LPD-30 classes. Huntington Ingalls Industries' Ingalls Shipbuilding (HII/Ingalls) of Pascagoula, MS, is the builder of LPD-17 Flight I ships. On April 6, 2018, the Navy announced that it intends to issue a solicitation on a sole-source basis to HII/Ingalls for the detail design and construction (DD&C) of LPD-30. The Navy's FY2019 budget submission, which was submitted before Congress finalized its action on the Navy's FY2018 budget, does not request procurement of an LPD-17 Flight II ship in FY2019, and does not request any procurement or advance procurement (AP) funding for the LPD-17 Flight II program in FY2019. It programs the procurement of an LPD-17 Flight II ship in FY2020. Under the Navy's original plan, the ship programmed for procurement in FY2020 was to be the first Flight II ship. With the first Flight II ship having been procured in FY2018, the Flight II ship scheduled for procurement in FY2020 would be the second Flight II ship. Issues for Congress for FY2019 for the LPD-17 Flight II program include the following: whether to accelerate the procurement of the second LPD-17 Flight II ship (i.e., LPD-31) from FY2020 to FY2019; and the Navy's intent to issue a solicitation for LPD-30 on a sole-source basis, and the Navy's plans for controlling costs and achieving good production quality and schedule adherence in the LPD-17 Flight II program in a sole-source contracting environment.

Updated 12/10/2020: In December 2016, the Navy released a force-structure goal that callsfor achieving and maintaining a fleet of 355 ships of certain types and numbers. The 355-shipgoal was made U.S. policy by Section 1025 of the FY2018 National Defense AuthorizationAct (H.R. 2810/P.L. 115- 91 of December 12, 2017). The Navy and the Department of Defense(DOD) have been working since 2019 to develop a successor for the 355-ship force-level goal.The new goal is expected to introduce a new, more distributed fleet architecture featuring asmaller proportion of larger ships, a larger proportion of smaller ships, and a new third tier oflarge unmanned vehicles (UVs). On December 9, 2020, the Trump Administration released a document that can beviewed as its vision for future Navy force structure and/or a draft version of the FY202230-year Navy shipbuilding plan. The document presents a Navy force-level goal that callsfor achieving by 2045 a Navy with a more distributed fleet architecture, 382 to 446 mannedships, and 143 to 242 large UVs. The Administration that takes office on January 20, 2021,is required by law to release the FY2022 30-year Navy shipbuilding plan in connection withDOD's proposed FY2022 budget, which will be submitted to Congress in 2021. In preparingthe FY2022 30-year shipbuilding plan, the Administration that takes office on January 20,2021, may choose to adopt, revise, or set aside the document that was released on December9, 2020. The Navy states that its original FY2021 budget submission requests the procurement ofeight new ships, but this figure includes LPD-31, an LPD-17 Flight II amphibious ship thatCongress procured (i.e., authorized and appropriated procurement funding for) in FY2020.Excluding this ship, the Navy's original FY2021 budget submission requests the procurementof seven new ships rather than eight. In late November 2020, the Trump Administrationreportedly decided to request the procurement of a second Virginia-class attack submarinein FY2021. CRS as of December 10, 2020, had not received any documentation from theAdministration detailing the exact changes to the Virginia-class program funding linesthat would result from this reported change. Pending the delivery of that information fromthe administration, this CRS report continues to use the Navy's original FY2021 budgetsubmission in its tables and narrative discussions.

CSIS's Mark Cancian annually produces a series of white papers on U.S. military forces, including their composition, new initiatives, long-term trends, and challenges. This report is a compilation of these papers. It takes a deep look at each military service, as well as special operations forces, DOD civilians, and contractors in the FY 2022 budget. The report also discusses the debate about legacy equipment, the interaction of the budget and force size, and the decline in force size that the services face with retiring older systems without adequate replacements.