“Our adversaries look at our budgets process and exploit it,” said Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. 

“Is there savings you could harvest if you built a smaller version of that ship, but you had essentially the same technologies in it?” said Bryan Clark, a retired submariner who co-authored a report on future fleet architecture this year for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Beyond their smaller crew capacity, the problem with the existing LCS hulls is that it is unclear whether they are large enough to effectively accommodate these additional weapons systems. This is why the analysts behind one of the most talked-about proposals for the Navy’s future fleet design from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments advocated a frigate of 4000-5000 tons, significantly larger than the 3000 ton LCSs.

The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the fiscal year 2018 defense policy bill directs the Navy to begin designing a smaller carrier. Three entities conducted recent Navy force structure assessments: the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, the Mitre Corp. and the Navy's assessment division in the office of the chief of naval operations (N81), all of which recommended the service add smaller aircraft carriers to its future fleet.

“In our analysis, we expect surface combatants to quickly expend their VLS magazines even in a small confrontation and need to leave the conflict area to reload.” 

The newest Ford-class vessels have a service life of 50 years, but the Pentagon may find itself confronted more forcefully by China and Russia by the 2030s, according to a January 2017 report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a nonprofit think tank that advocates for a Navy reconfiguration.