Manning problems have existed for a decade, if not more. The Navy holds the sad record of being the worst managed branch of service. Steep budget cuts in the 1990s and again during sequestration have had severe effects that the Navy hasn't yet recovered from. But I don't know whether that's the cause of the problem. The Navy is an especially unique branch given that it's the only service that revolves around a relatively small number of very large, very expensive assets. The Army doesn't revolve around its tanks, and the Air Force, while it revolves around planes, there are a lot more planes in the Air Force than ships in the Navy. Congress is not without blame for the Navy's problems either, apart from the budget cuts. Congress has the last word on all programs and procurement. The Littoral Combat Ships should never have seen the light of day for instance, but Congress pushed the program through, and now the ships are useless (and still being built!)
But there is hope on the horizon. The submarine construction programs (Virginia SSNs and Columbia SSBNs) are proceeding smoothly, as are the Flight III destroyers. DDG(X), the future replacement of the Arleigh-Burke class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers, is in development, and the first Constellation-class frigates will soon be laid down.
While there have been budget cuts, the US Navy’s budget went from ~80B in 2001 to over 160B today. Given what the US spends as a % of GDP, it feels like this should be more than enough. From afar, the problem appears to be decision makers in the Navy refusing to reduce scope and deciding to understaff.
Part of the problem is that the Navy can't reduce it's scope. Congress sets in law a lot of requirements. For example, the Navy has to have 11 large aircraft carriers, which is more than the rest of the world combined. This led to shell games when the Ford was behind in construction and doesn't allow the Navy to look at alternate force constructs such as more smaller carriers or focusing more on subs. Congress does this with all the branches, just look at why A-10s are still flying or the Abrams are still being built at like two a year. Now, this isn't always a bad thing. The services have not always done a great job transitioning to new technology, and have messed up their financing so bad they can't pass an audit, so a little extra oversight does make sense.
What percent was spent on capital budgets in 2001 vs 2021? The navy is currently undergoing building 4 or 5 major ship replacement cycles, replacing all of its aircraft (Top 10 airforce in the world), etc. My guess is that most of that budget is mandated by congress for that rather than for bottom paint on supply ships.
I looked briefly, and it's annoyingly hard to find summaries of the passed (not proposed) NDAA for a specific year, with top line and categorized breakdowns.
It is all meaningless speculation. There is no reason that broadly measured inflation statistics have any relevance to price increases specific to materials and labor required for the subject at hand, such as ship building or operations of a navy.
To reply to those saying CPI inflation is up 60% over the period: S&P500 is a better measure of inflation, up 3x over the period, so navy budget roughly keeping pace.
The Navy has failed to accomplish the modpro packages on the current CGs & LSD, including Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Tortuga. Those three I have personally been involved with in many ways. The 5XXX and structural work on the CG program has been wildly underestimated. The money for Tortuga was never there and as she lay idle in the shipyard problems grew. They are not simply east coast/BAE issues either. The issues repeat themselves here on the west coast at Vigor. It was a huge mistake to leave behind cost+ and switch to FFP. There is too much time lost to pointless contract fighting.
There is hope on the horizon with new subs and DDGx and FFG. Time will tell if the new build construction yields a new DDG1000/LCS or a workhorse like the earlier DDG flights.
As for corrosion it is a necessary evil. Too many armchair metallurgists point to various alloys as a solution. The ocean is cold, salty, and miserable. The planning yards, repair yards, and Navy are full of extremely bright and hardworking folks. It takes time and money to fight rust at sea and in port.
There's a big issue with manning on the civilian and Navy side. At the end of the day there are few people in my generation lining up to enlist or to do body-damaging labor. I can't say I blame them.. I became and engineer and then joined program management. Few in the yards want the same for their children as they had in their life. Those who are left are primarily 30+ years of experience or 1-5 years of experience looking to get out.
But there is hope on the horizon. The submarine construction programs (Virginia SSNs and Columbia SSBNs) are proceeding smoothly, as are the Flight III destroyers. DDG(X), the future replacement of the Arleigh-Burke class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers, is in development, and the first Constellation-class frigates will soon be laid down.