Weapon Systems

This report examines some of the challenges U.S. forces might face in a conflict in the Baltic region or the South China Sea and options for mitigating those challenges by procuring and fielding ground-launched long-range missiles.

Summarizing three reports about the aviation fleets of the U.S. Air Force, Army, and the Department of the Navy, CBO projects the number and costs of aircraft the Department of Defense would need to procure to maintain the fleets’ current size through 2050.

CBO estimates that purchasing new aircraft to maintain the aviation fleet of the Navy and Marine Corps at its current size would cost about $380 billion (in 2018 dollars) from 2020 to 2050. Annual costs would range from $7 billion to $17 billion.

CBO estimates that the Navy’s plan to modernize and operate its sealift ships over the next 30 years would cost roughly $39 billion. In this report, CBO explores four alternatives that would vary in cost from $34 billion to $40 billion.

CBO estimates that the total shipbuilding budget would average $31 billion per year, one-third more than the Navy estimates. The plan would require an increase of more than 50 percent compared with recent shipbuilding budgets.

According to CBO’s projections, if the plans described in the 2020 FYDP were implemented, DoD’s costs would increase from the $718 billion requested for 2020 to $776 billion (in 2020 dollars) by 2034.

The annual costs of replacing the Army’s aviation fleet would decline during the 2020s, from about $4 billion in 2018 to about $1.5 billion in 2027, and then rise to a peak of about $4.7 billion in 2032 before drifting downward again.

CBO estimates the added personnel requirements and costs of five kinds of military space organizations. DoD wants to create three, which could increase annual costs by $1 billion to $2 billion and require onetime startup costs of $2 billion to $5 billion.

From 1993 to 2017, the Navy conducted 117 maintenance overhauls of attack submarines and sent 29 to private shipyards. Overhauls conducted at private shipyards were 31 percent less expensive, on average, a gap that has narrowed recently.

The Administration’s current plans for U.S. nuclear forces would cost $494 billion over the 2019–2028 period—$94 billion more than CBO’s 2017 estimate for the 2017–2026 period, in part because modernization programs continue to ramp up.

CBO projects that the annual cost (in 2018 dollars) of replacing the aircraft in the current fleet, essentially one-for-one, would average $15 billion in the 2020s, $23 billion in the 2030s, and $15 billion in the 2040s.

CBO analyzes how the Defense Department’s (DoD’s) funding for military conflicts has changed over time and how the separate budgetary treatment of that funding affects perceptions of DoD’s spending and the anticipated costs of DoD’s plans.

The Navy’s 2019 shipbuilding plan calls for expanding the fleet to 355 battle force ships. On average, implementing the plan would cost 80 percent more per year than the funding for shipbuilding that the Navy has received in recent decades.

As aircraft age, they generally become more expensive to operate. The rate of cost growth for the Air Force’s aging aircraft has increased in recent years to a considerable degree because of growth in the total Air Force budget.

This tool allows the user to see the effects on the Department of Defense’s total operation and support costs and on the size of the military of adding or subtracting tanks, ships, aircraft, and other units.

The Navy could use several approaches to increase the size of its fleet. This report focuses on reactivating decommissioned ships, drawing insights from past experiences that might inform lawmakers’ decisions about reactivating ships.

CBO regularly analyzes the Navy’s shipbuilding programs and produces its own estimates of the costs of new ships. CBO’s method relies on historical experience, with adjustments for rate, learning, acquisition strategy, and economic factors.

CBO estimates that the costs of achieving a 355-ship Navy under two different approaches would average over $100 billion annually through 2047. Those scenarios are compared with two others that would cost less and involve a smaller fleet.

This report examines the depot-level maintenance experiences of aging combat aircraft currently in use by DoD and provides insights for the Congress and DoD to consider as the F-35 fleet enters service.

CBO estimates that inflation-adjusted costs for the Department of Defense would climb from the $575 billion requested in 2018 to $688 billion in 2027 if DoD pursued goals that Administration officials have articulated for the military.

CBO estimates that construction costs to build a fleet of 355 ships would average $26.6 billion (in 2017 dollars) per year over the next 30 years, which is 60 percent more than what the Navy has spent on average over the past 30 years.

The Obama Administration’s final defense plan called for base-budget funding averaging $540 billion (in 2017 dollars) from 2017 through 2021, but it would have reached almost $600 billion per year by 2032 under DoD’s cost assumptions. 

The Navy can sustain its forward presence under smaller shipbuilding budgets by using longer deployments, more overseas basing, and more rotating crews. But those methods would offset some of the savings and have other disadvantages.

The Department of Defense's base budget increased by 31 percent (adjusted for inflation) between 2000 and 2014, mainly because of higher costs for military personnel and operation and maintenance.

CBO compares the Army’s plan for the GCV with four options and finds that, although no option would meet all of the Army’s goals, all are likely to be less costly and pose a smaller risk of delay than CBO expects for the Army’s plan.

Between 2012 and 2041, the Navy will: purchase 20 amphibious ships at a cost of about $50 billion; retire 22 amphibious ships; and meet or exceed the 33-ship goal between 2017 and 2031 but fall below the goal the rest of the time.