At the height of the Cold War, as the American fleet was everywhere challenged by the Soviet Navy and burgeoning global commitments under a new maritime strategy, the U.S. Navy embarked upon a new class of surface warships that promised broad capabilities in a destroyer-size hull.
First conceived in 1979, by the mid-1980s the Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) Aegis guided missile destroyers also faced daunting challenges at home. Congress was increasingly worried about the unprecedented cost of a destroyer that was greater than the Navy's cruisers. The Navy requested $1.25 billion for the lead DDG-51 in the fiscal 1985 budget - the equivalent of some $2.8 billion in today's dollars, according to Navy calculations –– which exceeded the $1.04 billion average unit cost of the three Ticonderoga CG-47-class Aegis cruisers also requested that year.
"Why not just continue to build Aegis cruisers?" numerous observers on and off the Hill asked.
The Navy faces a similar challenge today that could threaten the future of the multimission Zumwalt DDG-1000-class destroyers, warships that will push littoral naval expeditionary warfare operational envelopes and capabilities well beyond what is commonplace today.
In the 1980s, the Navy had an answer for its critics. Removing ship design, R&D and other non-recurring costs, the average follow-on DDG-51s were pegged at 70 percent of the average unit cost of the CG-47s then still in production. In testimony to the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Navy officials stressed that the 70 percent solution was a more accurate comparison of cost between the two classes than comparing the DDG-51 lead ship against follow-on CG-47s.
Fast-forward to 2008. With its new triservice maritime strategy in hand, the Navy is completing the last of the 62-ship Burke class. According them nominal 35-year service lives, the last Aegis destroyer will be retired about 2050, nearly 70 years after the secretary of the Navy called for the DDG-51s to be 70 percent the cost and 70 percent the capability of the Ticonderoga cruisers.
The service has also put in place a well-structured program to deliver the DDG-1000 –– at 15,000 tons displacement, a cruiser in all but name.
The first post-Cold War and post-9/11 U.S. surface warship, DDG-1000 has been designed for what Defense Secretary Robert Gates now calls "today's wars," but will also deliver vital multimission capabilities for other 21st-century needs that are only dimly foreseen today.
But this won't come cheap. The Navy awarded $1.3 billion contracts for each of the first two ships of the Zumwalt class on Feb. 14. The lead ships are being built by Northrop Grumman at Pascagoula, Miss., and by General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works in Maine. The Navy figures the total cost to deliver each ship in 2013 will be about $3.2 billion.
And not without controversy. Cassandras abound, questioning the requirements for the new ships, deriding what they see as unrealistically low if still exorbitant cost estimates, puzzling over what seems to be unenthusiastic service support of the program, and suggesting to delay or halt DDG-1000 construction and restart the DDG-51 line.
DDG-1000 is not a replacement for any in-service warship but a gap-filler to help satisfy critical littoral and expeditionary warfare operational requirements that the Navy and Marine Corps determined could not be met by in-service assets. Its radars and low-observable/stealth characteristics mean the ship will be able to detect and engage air threats well beyond an attacker's capability to detect the DDG-1000.
The modular Peripheral Vertical Launch System can accommodate today's Tomahawk land-attack, Standard and Enhanced Sea Sparrow missiles, as well as future weapons. The ship's two 155mm Advanced Gun Systems each have 600 rounds of precision-guided Long-Range Land-Attack Projectiles to deliver accurate fires at ranges greater than 70 nautical miles and rates approaching 10 rounds per minute.
The Zumwalt can operate with near impunity in dangerous littoral combat environments, and it will handle helicopters and vertical takeoff/landing UAVs.
The original requirement of 32 DDG-1000s has never been formally rescinded, and solely due to fiscal constraints has the Navy slashed the program to 24 to 12 and now just seven ships. But there are indications that if the Marines were successful in getting the 10th San Antonio (LPD-17), there might be a need for an additional three DDG-1000s to round out 10 Expeditionary Strike Groups.
The program-of-record cost of the third DDG-1000 funded in fiscal 2009 is approximately $2.5 billion. Remove DDG-1003 from the equation, and the cost for one DDG-51 Fight IIA destroyer in 2009 would be $2.1 billion, while two DDGs would cost about $3.6 billion, according to the Navy.
John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, on June 3 told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a House-passed proposal to delay the planned third DDG-1000 and build instead additional DDG-51s would disrupt an extensive network of suppliers and subcontractors. It would also mean higher prices once DDG-1000 production resumes, he explained, so the better course is to proceed with the program of record.
But Young is an optimist. Given the 18 to 24 months of political turbulence come the new administration next January, and red-hot competition with other defense and domestic priorities, even a one-year hiatus will likely result in shutting the program down.
Still, it ain't over till it's over. The bottom line in mid-2008 is that the DDG-1000 is a good solution for today's and tomorrow's littoral expeditionary warfare needs. The Navy has a well-structured program and plan that will deliver the ships, on time and on budget, and certainly within historical parameters for new-design warships. It's time to get on with it.
Scott Truver directs National Security Programs at Gryphon Technologies, Greenbelt, Md
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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