Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

DDX dead?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • DDX dead?

    May 11, 2005

    House panel adds three ships to defense budget

    By William Matthews
    Times staff writer


    A House subcommittee voted May 11 to add $2.3 billion and three ships to the 2006 defense budget.
    The projection forces subcommittee unanimously approved adding two DDG-51 destroyers and a T-AKE dry cargo ship to the $419.3 billion defense budget that President Bush requested from Congress for 2006.

    The extra ships, added during a brief markup” of the subcommittee’s portion of the 2006 defense authorization bill, will cost an additional $3.3 billion. Subcommittee staffers said $1 billion has been trimmed from a variety of other defense programs under the subcommittee’s jurisdiction.

    The president’s budget called for buying only four new ships in 2006. Lawmakers have criticized the number as “an all-time low.” Bush’s spending plan includes money for one Virginia-class attack submarine, one amphibious transport, a littoral combat ship and a cargo vessel.

    That’s not enough ship construction to keep U.S. shipyards alive, House subcommittee members said. The extra three ships provide “an opportunity to use the work force that we will need in the future” to build ships, said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., subcommittee chairman.

    Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., emphasized that the ships are needed so the United States can continue “projecting a strong naval presence around the world.”

    In addition to adding ships to the budget, the subcommittee voted to establish a $100 million Shipbuilding Industrial Base Improvement Program under which the U.S. government will buy advanced shipbuilding technology for shipyards.

    Taylor said subcommittee members “were taken aback” when they visited European shipyards and discovered that they were more technically advanced than those in the United States. “It should not be that way,” he said.

    But U.S. shipyard owners do not want to invest in advanced technology because of the year-to-year uncertainty of the shipbuilding budget of their only customer — the U.S. government.

    So the government will buy advanced equipment and provide it to the shipyards, Taylor said.

    If the yards ever land commercial work, they will have to lease the equipment from the government to avoid violating international regulations against government subsidies, he said.

    Bartlett said the DD(X) destroyer was a central player in the president’s 2006 budget request.

    The ship is most prominent in the 2006 budget by its absence. Bartlett said the ship has become increasingly complicated as new technology has been added to it. It has grown from 8,000 tons to 14,000 tons and from less than $1 billion to “pushing $4 billion.”

    As a result, the ship is late in development, and the number of ships the Navy can afford has dropped to five.

    “Essentially, it is a technology demonstration program” whose technology has not yet matured, Bartlett said.

    The DD(X)’s problems led the subcommittee to add two DDG-51s to the budget, he said.

    Markups by House and Senate Armed Services committees continue. The Senate’s markup sessions are closed to the public.

    The next step is action on the 2006 Authorization Act by the full House and Senate committees. A vote by the House committee is scheduled for May 18 and a vote by the full House could come the following week.

  • #2
    Shocking...

    Comment


    • #3
      The Leatherneck magazine has had advertisements for it for months now, and now its dying?

      Comment


      • #4
        Well, I guess it's better to have 2 Burkes in the water than a DDX on paper.
        (Yes I know, those 2 Burkes are still on paper as well)
        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

        Comment


        • #5
          Those two Burkes were originally programmed to get through the original DDX delay so its not really "shocking".

          However the USN deleted them per Rumsfeld. PLus the fact the USN wanted to push first LCS and second DDX but Congress isnt buying either program as hoped. LOL

          But now we have the JFK likely to be funded and these two ships plus the AKE whose procurement had been pushed to the out years. But its not really a done deal written in stone yet AFAIK. LOL

          But it does prove my point that Congress will fund any weapon system if you can get them to believe its in "their" best interest. LOL

          BB fans take note. Over the years Ive tried off and on to get Congressmen to fund the BBs reactivation. But they have never felt my arguments compelling enough or anyone elses either for that matter. LOL

          Comment


          • #6
            Heres more:

            Lawmakers free up $2.3B for extra ships
            A subcommittee scales back research for the next- generation DDX destroyer, shaking up Navy plans.

            BY DAVID LERMAN
            202-824-8224

            May 12, 2005

            WASHINGTON -- Rejecting the Navy's shipbuilding plan as too meager, Congress began adding money to the Pentagon's budget Wednesday to nearly double the number of ships that would be purchased next year.

            The House Armed Services subcommittee that oversees shipbuilding approved a plan that would add two destroyers and a cargo ship to next year's budget, increasing the number of ships to be built from four to seven.

            Lawmakers freed up an additional $2.3 billion for extra ships partly by scaling back research work on the next-generation DDX destroyer.

            Congressmen said they could not continue to support the high-tech DDX when its costs have soared from under $1 billion per ship to as much as $4 billion. Such skyrocketing costs, they said, makes shipbuilding unaffordable and results in a smaller fleet.

            In cutting the DDX by an undisclosed amount, lawmakers also set a new price cap of $1.7 billion on the ship - a move that could force a radical reassessment of the program.

            Taken together, the moves to add ships and cut back on high-tech designs amount to a bold rebuke of Navy plans, which have stressed technology and capability over numbers of ships.

            "I'm very concerned about the runaway increases in shipbuilding costs, the viability of our future force structure and the ambiguity and volatility in shipbuilding plans," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, in a written statement.

            Apparently lauding the proposed cutbacks to DDX, Hunter said, "We must take these steps to end the practice of designing and trying to build ships that we don't need and cannot afford."

            Instead of pumping so much money into a futuristic ship, the subcommittee opted to buy two more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers - ensuring a stable work force at the two shipyards that build them: Northrop Grumman's Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi and General Dynamics Corp.'s Bath Iron Works in Maine.

            "It gets ships in the water and provides an opportunity to use our work force, which needs to be there in the future," said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., the subcommittee chairman.

            But Virginia Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Gloucester, said she is concerned that delaying work on the DDX will further delay construction of the future CVN-21 aircraft carrier in Newport News. Technology being developed for DDX, she said, will be needed for the new carrier as well.

            The Navy has proposed delaying the start of construction of the carrier from 2007 until 2008. Virginia lawmakers are hoping to avoid that one-year delay and want to find about $82 million to add to next year's budget to keep the carrier on schedule. Davis said she will propose adding that money next week, when the full House Armed Services Committee produces its annual defense bill.

            Although the draft bill still includes money for another Virginia-class submarine, lawmakers have expressed concern about the mounting costs of the submarine program. Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., said the subcommittee's draft includes provisions requiring the Navy to develop a next-generation submarine. Navy officials have been studying ways to design a cheaper submarine out of concern that the Virginia-class program - about $2.5 billion per boat - could prove to be unaffordable in the long term.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by rickusn
              Heres more:
              said the subcommittee's draft includes provisions requiring the Navy to develop a next-generation submarine. Navy officials have been studying ways to design a cheaper submarine out of concern that the Virginia-class program - about $2.5 billion per boat - could prove to be unaffordable in the long term.
              Isn't the Virginia-class a cheap Wolf?
              US: Cheaper, cheaper, worse, worse.
              Enemy: Funds, funds, better, better.

              3 ships is pathetic.

              Comment

              Working...
              X