Skelton: Navy must end ship debates soonStaff report
Posted : Tuesday Mar 3, 2009 16:25:35 EST
The Navy must make a final decision this year about how many and what kind of surface ships it wants, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.
Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, a Democrat, told the American Shipbuilding Association that he didn’t know yet what this year’s shipbuilding request would include, but that the Navy couldn’t afford to wait longer before settling on a course for what new warships to build.
“The debate about the future surface Navy needs to end this year. A decision needs to be made. After a decision is made that both the Department (of the Navy) and the Congress can support, we need to fund the surface construction program at the level necessary to restore our fleet,” Skelton said. “Whether that number is 313 ships or 340 ships, we need to get there.”
Skelton said he thought the Navy should try to buy 10 ships this year, but that it should be sure they were “the right 10 ships.” The U.S. can’t afford to build all the ships the Navy wants in its 30-year plan, he said, which means the service must place a high priority on efficiencies and economies.
“We would like the Navy to do what the Navy keeps saying makes the most sense: build affordable ships which leverage on commonality with other ship programs, and build them in numbers that allow for economies of purchase and investment in infrastructure,” Skelton said.
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http://navytimes.com/news/2009/03/navy_skelton_shipbuilding_030309w/%2euhc comment: Some of the more recent additions to the fleet include:
two Littoral Combat Ships at $600 million dollars a pop
two Zumwalt destroyers at $5.3 billion dollars a pop
the last Nimitz-class carrier at $6.3 billion a pop (minus people and airplanes)
and of course, the new Ford-class carriers at $11+ billion a pop (minus people and airplanes)