Adm. Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, has issued his first planning guidance for maintaining superiority in the maritime domain, Defense News reported Wednesday.
His guidance’s lines of effort are divided into warfighting, warfighters and future Navy subheads and the first priority focuses on improving ship maintenance and advancing modernization to achieve readiness.
The document calls for Naval Sea Systems Command to come up with a plan within 60 days on how to sustain and improve the maintenance industrial base as well as achieve an 80 percent reduction in days spent on depot maintenance extensions in 2020.
The guidance directs Fleet Forces Command to ensure the Optimized Fleet Response Plan offers adequate forces to meet requirements for deployment and enough time in maintenance and asks the command to respond by January.
Other key takeaways from the document are the Navy’s warfighting goals, the push for more advanced training, deployment of Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines and the focus on electronic warfare and directed energy to defend ships and reduce cost.
