(Navy Times) Editorial: Explain destroyer flip-flop

[unhappycamper]

Editorial: Explain destroyer flip-flop

The Navy’s credibility sunk to a new low July 31 when service officials reversed course on the next-generation destroyer after spending more than a decade — and $10 billion in research and development — on the program.

After 13 years of claiming that the program, now called DDG 1000, was critical to the Navy’s needs — and saying the Navy needed to move beyond its fleet of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers — two top acquisition officials told Congress they really do need Burkes after all. And that new destroyer? It wasn’t really a good fit for the threats the Navy faces.

The hearing was the Navy’s first chance to explain itself after deciding to cap its Zumwalt-class destroyer program at two hulls, nixing earlier plans to build seven. The new plan is to build at least eight more Burkes.

So, why the change? The obvious reason is money. Lawmakers and independent analysts for years have been pointing out the program’s ballooning costs — each ship is estimated to cost at least $3.2 billion.

But the two officials — Vice Adm. Barry McCullough and Allison Stiller, the Navy secretary’s head of ship programs — chose to ignore the affordability problem and instead argue that the Zumwalts aren’t what the Navy needs right now. Instead, they leaned on a new “classified threat” to cite why the Burkes — conceived in the 1980s, built in the 1990s and dismissed as too old until just now — are the ships the Navy must continue to build.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/community/opinion/navy_editorial_destroyer_081108/



uhc comment: The question of the actual cost of the LCS program continues to raise interesting questions.

This Navy Times article sez $3,500,000,000. The original estimate for the LCS was $220,000,000. Here's a Navy Times article stating the Navy and Lockeed Martin quoting a $500,000,000 cost.

You're busted, dudes.