The U.S. Navy celebrated last month when it awarded the construction contracts for the first two DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class advanced destroyers. But sentiment is building in Congress to end the planned seven-ship program after the first two - and using the money to build other ships, including some the Navy says it does not want.
In remarks made in public hearings over the past three weeks, lawmakers have expressed little faith in the Navy's ability to estimate how much money it needs to build its 313-ship fleet.
The service revised its cost estimates for the 30-year fleet plan in February. Over the next six years, the Navy says, it needs an average of $15.6 billion.
But on March 14, naval budget analyst Eric Labs of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Congress the service actually needs an average of $21 billion over that period.
Moreover, Labs said, the Navy's 30-year plan will require an average of about $25 billion a year, double the $12.6 billion average the service has been spending each year since 2003.
Ron O'Rourke, a naval analyst with the Congressional Research Service, backed up Labs in testimony before the Seapower subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. The 40 percent increase, O'Rourke, said, "is so large that the Navy no longer appears to have a clearly identifiable announced strategy" to build its fleet.
Labs also took aim at the DDG 1000. The Navy has advertised the first two ships as costing $3.3 billion each to build, although subsequent hulls will be cheaper. Labs now thinks $5 billion is more likely, with higher figures possible.
The Navy is asking for money to buy the third DDG 1000 in the 2009 budget, but support for the seven-ship DDG 1000 program already is waning. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the powerful House Appropriations defense subcommittee, announced Feb. 27 he is considering delaying the destroyer in order to buy other ships, including an LPD 17-class amphibious ship and two more T-AKE ammunition ships.
In Navy posture hearings over the past few weeks, the possibility of delaying or canceling the DDG 1000 program has been routinely discussed. No lawmaker has stood to support the program on its merits - only for the shipbuilding work it represents.
Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., chairman of the House Seapower subcommittee, is strongly pushing nuclear power for all future surface ships, and he is considering ending the DDG 1000 program at two ships, building more DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers and moving to build more nuclear-powered cruisers.
"I've sat here and watched the Navy over the past decade go from saying we need over 30 DDG 1000s and the number kept whittling down. Now they say they need seven. Some senior officers say only two. That tells me that the Navy is not sold on this product," Taylor said March 14.
Navy officials are aware of the program's growing problems on Capitol Hill.
"It's a lot of money, and I think the real issue is the cost, not the underlying need for the ship," Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, deputy chief of naval operations for resources and requirements, told reporters March 14 after testifying before Taylor's subcommittee.
The Navy's top shipbuilding official agreed.
"I think they're more interested in buying more ships," Allison Stiller said. "It's not necessarily a question of capability, they want to see quantity."
In testimony before Congress, top service officials routinely express confidence in the need for the DDG 1000 program. But Taylor said service support for the ship is soft. His proposal to cut short the DDG 1000 program and use the DDG 51 design to test out technologies in the new ship comes, he said, from inside the Navy.
"I'm telling you right off the bat, it is not my idea. It came to me from a very senior naval officer," Taylor told reporters.
He declined, however, to provide any names.
The Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is ready to test a few components that soldiers may have in their hands by 2010.
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