Great. Another $5 billion dollar target barge in the works.

[unhappycamper]

The first Zumwalt-class destroyer won't deploy until 2016.


DDG 1000 moves forward as budget battles fade
By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Aug 7, 2010 11:13:02 EDT

Devoid of much fanfare and defying the expectations of critics, production of the Navy’s DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer program is steadily moving forward.

In June, the program weathered a Nunn-McCurdy breach — a budget-control measure triggered by the jump in per-unit cost when the Navy decided in 2008 to “truncate” the class from seven ships to three — and in early July awarded the first contracts to begin fabrication of the third ship. With work now proceeding on all three ships, program manager Capt. James Syring turned over his duties Aug. 6 after nearly five years at the helm of what is arguably the most complex surface warship ever built.

The program, according to Syring, is still meeting most of its cost targets — a claim he first made a year ago. But he declined to cite a figure for cost growth on the first ship, projected to cost about $3.3 billion.

“We track CPI and cost performance, and every contract at this point is above a 0.9 CPI,” meaning no contract is 10 percent or more over budget, he said. “The majority of the contracts are within 1 or 2 percent.”

The CPI is a measure of cost efficiency, computed by dividing the budgeted cost by the actual cost.



unhappycamper comment: I wasn't aware that the DoD budget battles were fading. We must be in an economic recovery.

The first two of these barges cost over $5 billion dollars each. And then the DoD had the temerity to cancel the primary weapons system, NLOS-LS.

WTF are you guys thinking?

[hobbit709]

1. Looks like ship design is retrogressing to the 1860's.

[Turbineguy]

2. That 10 percent would pay

for 5 cargo ships.

They would be engaged in peaceful trading. And the ships would pay for themselves.

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[DavidDvorkin]

4. I'm so glad America can afford stuff like this!

Woo hoo! USA! USA! Number 1! Number 1!

[Starry Messenger]

5. Just for comparison, the entire budget of Race To The Top is about $4 billion.

Food stamps just got cut. I don't know who the fuck is running things.

[sl8]

6. Are you sure that NLOS-LS was in the works for these?

I know that NLOS-LS was planned as an important feature for the Littoral Combat Ship, but hadn't seen where it was being considered for the DDG-1000.

Seems like NLOS-LS would be superfluous for the DDG-1000s; they already have 2 AGS guns & 80 VLS cells.

[unhappycamper]

8. You are correct.

I just went and searched DU, DoD Buzz and defensetech. Every mention of NLOS-NL was associated with the $500+ million dollar LCS ships. My bad.

[sl8]

9. Thanks for the reply. n/t

[NewJeffCT]

7. And how much money did ACORN get over its lifetime?

only a fraction of that $5 billion...

[hunter]

10. We could build them out of plywood and pocket the difference...

Who'd ever know?

[krispos42]

11. Seems to me it would be cheaper just to revive three battleships.

Ticonderoga-class and Burke-class ships have plenty of space for Tomahawk missiles and SeaSLAMs. We've also converted four Ohio-class boomers into Tomahawk-missile subs. Each converted Ohio carries 154 Tomahawks... way more than a Ticonderoga or a Burke can carry.

And nine 16-inch guns are hard to beat for beach-blasting. A dozen shells a minute for hours on end. Each one weighing over a ton and leaving the muzzle at some 3,000 feet per second.

I'd rather see the money going towards retiring the Perry class frigates and replacing them with a general-purpose guided-missile frigate... something designed for operations away from a carrier task force. Like, say, hunting Somolian or Indoneasian pirates.

[Safetykitten]

12. Living in the end of the Empire. Gotta love it.