CNO: Could lose Navy shipyards

Navy readiness won’t fully recover from 2013 sequestration if the FY-2016 Budget Control Act cuts (more sequestration) return, said CNO Adm. Jonathan Greenert. The nation might lose two of its five remaining major shipyards. “I worry about the shipbuilding industrial base.” If sequestration forces steep cuts to Navy’s shipbuilding account, the impact on the size of the fleet “would take years to manifest,” he said. Ships last for decades. Building fewer generally comes back to “bite you in a generation” … but “there’s some likelihood we lose one or two [ship] builders, and we only have five.” Bath (Maine) Iron Works; Electric Boat in Connecticut, Newport News, Va.; Ingalls, Miss.; and NASSCO in California are the “Big Five” Navy shipyards - since the Avondale (La.) closure. But the Big 5 are operated by two companies – Huntington-Ingalls Industries and General Dynamics. (Source: Breaking Defense, 11/04/14)