mr. pendleton: that would be taught. there is a lot of responsibility within the operation and maintenance counts, but that is not my specialty. there are limits on the modernization, i should probably get the admiral to comment on that. sen. rounds: that would be fine. admiral? admiral richardson: it would require coming back to congress with the reprogramming request, educated to make that happen. it is not easy. sen. rounds: the reason i ask, it seems to be that we are likes using a balloon in some cases. when we talk about moving resources, even if we could move them, we are still talking about limited resources brought about the sequestration and limited budgets, that all of our forces are suffering with right now. if we take a look at them, at the readiness and modernization side, within the navy, we have the best examples that we will continue to remind you of -- three nuclear powered submarines dock ase sitting at opposed to being at depot because we do not have the money required to get them operational. they ar

my question to begin with would be to mr. pendleton. does the navy have the ability to shift resources, if they were to be available, from programs involving modernization to readiness? >> that would be tough. there's a lot of funding in the operations can pick that's not my specialty. there's limits on the modernization. i probably should get the outdoor summer to comment on that. >> admiral richardson, would you care to --in >> a program shifted that type would probably require us to come back to congress with an above threshold reprogramming request and i would be adjudicated to make that happen. it's not easy. >> the reason why i ask is it seems to be we are almost, it's almost like squeezing a balloon in some cases. when we start talking about meeting resources even if we could move them we are still talking but the limited resources brought about by sequestration and limited budgets that all of our armedl forces are suffering with right now. if we take a look at the ready beside and the modernization side, with gotchas within the

thank you, mr. pendleton. admiral moran, do you agree that, if we had more ships in our navy fleet, we could spread the workload more evenly, we wouldn't be pushed up against the demands and stresses that happen when you have ships forward deployed for more than the planned number of years, extended maintenance periods, truncated training periods? give me your perspective about how the number of ships we have today -- let me put it in perspective. if you go back to the 1980s when we had a navy of 600 ships. we had 100 ships forward deployed. today we have 277 ships and we have 100 ships forward deployed. give me your perspective about the size of the fleet in relation to where we are today with forward deployed naval worses. >> you just gave the answer for me, chairman. i mean, that math is pretty hard to argue with. and while mr. pendleton and i have had this discussion, you can argue over the factors, you know, it's four times or three times, but the fact is, even with that, those ships are a lot closer to w

mr. pendleton, i want to get to you. in terms of the material and training readiness of our home ships quartered in japan, versus ships home ported in the united states, is there a readiness -- a form of readiness in which one group of ships are more ready than others? >> the information in the report we were not able to update shows trends -- the navy calls them equipment casualties, broken stuff -- had basically been upward for both u.s. based and overseas-based ships. casualtybased ships reports were -- again, that is equipment -- was more steeply upward. but we were not able to update that trend line since then, so i cannot answer since 2014, when our data ended. >> but the recent data, the lower state of readiness overseas? >> we saw a more steep increase in breakdowns are the overseas ships. >> admiral, do you agree? >> i do. -- i think this speaks to what you raised earlier, in -- if we are not rotating those ships back, the older they get, the more care they will need area that may be what we aren of looking at i