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Navy, General Dynamics to discuss LCS this week

The Navy and General Dynamics are expected to meet next week to discuss the Littoral Combat Ship program. GD spokesman Kendall Pease confirmed the Navy had asked for the meeting but provided no further details, other than to say a specific date had not been set.

Other sources, however, said the meeting was to discuss slowing construction on LCS 4, the second ship GD is building at its Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala.

A construction contract for the yet-to-be named ship was awarded in December, before cost growth on the first ship being built by Lockheed Martin, GD’s competitor in the LCS program, caused a work stoppage in January on what would have been Lockheed’s second ship. The Navy canceled completion of Lockheed’s LCS 3 in April.

Sources said the Navy is trying to avoid reimbursing GD should LCS 4 suffer a similar fate. Under federal regulations, the Navy is working with Lockheed to pay back the company for some of the costs it incurred on LCS 3. The service is restructuring its construction contracts for the LCS vessels to enact more stringent standards and compel its contractors to meet cost projections.

The LCS program has been rocked all year by problems with its acquisition strategy, which was originally intended to provide $220 million ships requiring two-year building times. The Navy plans to buy a total of 55 LCS ships to give it a new capability to fight in coastal waters.

But a series of design, production and management problems drove the cost of Lockheed’s first LCS to nearly $400 million, Navy officials have said, and the ship, named USS Freedom, now isn’t expected to be delivered until the spring of 2008, a year behind schedule.

That’s about the time GD’s first ship, the USS Independence, is expected to be delivered.

Congress has repeatedly expressed its unhappiness with the Navy’s management of the LCS program and the service’s ability to properly estimate and control costs. In the most drastic proposal to date, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee last week recommended buying neither of the two ships the Navy is asking for in 2008 and forcing the service to choose between one of the two designs before the end of next year, after a short trials period.

The Navy would prefer to build several more LCS ships — the exact number is under review — before choosing one design in 2010.