The Navy has well-documented issues with building warships. Less discussed, but equally important, are issues with repairing the ships it already has, which jeopardizes its ability to meet its own goal of sustaining a across all platforms. As the Navy focuses on preparing for a great power conflict potentially, the Navy needs to improve not just its peacetime ship repair capability but also expand its capacity to account for wartime repair requirements. While the issues facing the U.S. shipbuilding industry are complex, and it will take time to expand shipbuilding capacity for large combatants, the U.S. shipbuilding sector does have a robust capacity to build smaller vessels that can improve the U.S. Navy’s repair capabilities. In fact, there are 125 private U.S. shipyards that are capable of building small vessels needed for repair and salvage. The United States needs to prepare now for battle damage repair by investing in repair ships, and learning lessons from recent emergent repairs and the last major war it fought at sea.
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