The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul (DDG 74) participates in a multinational military exercise with NATO allies as part of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kerri Kline)
SURFACE NAVY 2025 — The US Navy’s top surface warfare officer (SWO) says significant changes are needed across how his fleet trains, conducts maintenance and executes contracts if the service wants to be able to meet its latest readiness goals.
“We can’t continue to do things the way we have been. We can’t just work harder or try harder at the processes that we have so far,” Vice Adm. Brendan McLane told reporters last week in the run up to the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium.
His remarks come as the surface fleet has faced a challenging year and now awaits new civilian leadership come Jan. 20. Operationally, the Navy — especially the surface fleet’s carrier strike groups — have been constantly fending off Iranian-backed Houthi attacks in the Middle East to protect international shipping lanes as well as US ally Israel.
At the Pentagon, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti has tasked McLane, and the other type commanders, to achieve an 80 percent surge-readiness goal by 2027 in her latest “Navigation Plan.”
McLane, whose command over all operational surface Navy forces means he’s also called the “SWO Boss,” said that being surge ready means a crew has completed surface warfare and advanced tactical training. “Once you finish that, you are ready to go,” he said. Generally ships will also go through a composite training exercise, dubbed “COMPTUEX,” which gives the crew time training with the rest of its carrier strike group.
In the interest of meeting that goal, the service plans to soon release an updated version of the strategy document the previous SWO Boss published in 2022, dubbed “The Competitive Edge.” The newer document will focus on meeting Franchetti’s recently established readiness goals, according to a Navy statement.
“The key … the long pole in the tent, that’s maintenance. We know that we’re going to have to do things differently,” McClane said, adding that he has received the results of a study done last year focused on improving amphibious ship maintenance.
“We need to be, within the authorities that we have already, more nimble when it comes to contracting strategies,” he continued. “We need a strategy of strategies, because the things that we need to be able to do maintenance-wise, can be different by ship, by home port, by what we want to accomplish and the same contracting vehicle is not going to be able to be applied universally to all of those situations.”
Another obstacle, McLane said, was getting ships through prerequisite training cycles on time. He said the service’s goal of a ship clearing that training cycle in 10 weeks is “achievable.” He added that one of the big hurdles to ships meeting that goal has been when specific systems are broken which prevents sailors from training on it.
Vice Adm. James Downey, the chief of Naval Sea Systems Command and the officer responsible for overseeing fleet-wide maintenance, told reporters the Navy is examining the practices of merchant ships, cruise lines, airlines, nuclear power plants and offshore oil platforms as a guide for improving the Navy’s methods. That practice mirrors steps the naval aviation community took back during the first Trump administration when then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis tasked the strike fighter fleets with significantly improving their own readiness statistics.
“How do they … perform on time, what is it they value, and how do they prepare to achieve what they value?” Downey said, while speaking to reporters alongside the SWO Boss.
McLane’s predecessor, then-Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener, back in 2023 set the surface fleet a goal to have 75 ships ready daily — a target the fleet failed to hit by last January. It was not immediately clear how that goal compares with the CNO’s new readiness targets or if it remains in effect. A spokesperson for the SWO Boss did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
