President Donald Trump’s spending plan for fiscal 2018 has not deviated from the previous administration’s plan to buy eight combat ships and has proposed to reduce aircraft procurement funds by at least $1.8 billion, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.The ships included in the fiscal 2018 budget blueprint include one Littoral Combat Ship, two Aegis destroyers, one aircraft carrier, two support ships and two attack submarines.
The proposed budget for aircraft procurement dropped to $15.2 billion, down from $16.8 billion enacted in fiscal 2017.
The drop in the budget would also reduce the number of planes to be procured from 113 units in FY 2017 to 91 in FY 2018.
The U.S. Navy would see a $1.3 billion cut in shipbuilding and conversion funds for 2018, but would get a budget of $3.6 billion for naval weapons procurement over the next fiscal year, the report added.
The fiscal 2018 budget plan would increase the U.S. Army’s personnel account by approximately $2.5 billion and the service’s operations and maintenance funds by $3.2 billion, Breaking Defense said in a separate report Tuesday.
Trump also proposed a $1 billion increase in the Army’s procurement funds and a $400 million cut to the military branch’s research and development account.
The budget plan would also fund the procurement of several air and missile defense platforms that include 131 Patriot missile modification kits, 6,000 multiple-launch guided rockets, 998 Hellfire missiles and updates to Stinger and Avenger air defense systems.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Horlander, budget director with the Army, said at a news conference the budget request aligns with Defense Secretary James Mattis’ call to address near-term military readiness and seeks to close vulnerability gaps, the report added.
